Glass- 
Book- 



CELEBRATION 

OF THE 

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE 

INCORPORATION 

OF THE 

TOWN OF BRUNSWICK 



JUNE 13 1889 



CELEBRATION 



OF THE 



ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 



OF THE 



INCORPORATION 



OF THE 



TOWN OF BRUNSWICK 



JUNE 13 1889 




BRUNSWICK MAINE 

PUBLISHED BY THE PEJEPSCOT HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

1889 



This account is published by the Pejepscot Historical Society, aided 
by a contribution from the General Committee of the town. The money 
thus received has been expended in procuring illustrations, and the 
price of the pamphlet covers merely the cost of printing and binding. 

Edward C. Guild, 
George T. Little, 
Hexry W. Wheeler, 

Committee on Publication. 



PRINTED AT JOURNAL OFFICE, LEWISTON, ME. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Preliminary Arrangements, 1 

The Celebration, 8 

Commemorative Ode, 10 

Address of the President of the Day, 11 

Oration, 14 

Poem, 40 

The Procession, 45 

The Dinner, 48 

Appendix, 79 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Town Hall, • . . Frontispiece. 

Card of Invitation, 5 

Main Street from the Tontine, 9 

Glimpses of Brunswick, 17 

Androscoggin Eiver, 41 

G-limpses of the Procession, ..." 47 

Fac Simile of Act of Incorporation, 81 



PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS. 



The proposition for an observance of the one hundred and fiftieth 

anniversary -of the incorporation of Brunswick originated with the 

Pejepscot Historical Society. At a meeting of that Society, held 

January 10, 1888, it was 

Voted, That in the opinion of this Society there should he a public observance 
of the one hundred, and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of Brunswick, 

and on February 16, 1888, a vote was passed requesting the Execu- 
tive Committee to lay the matter before the town at its next annual 
meeting. The Executive Committee accordingly procured the inser- 
tion of the following article in the warrant for the annual town 
meeting : 

Art. 21. To see if the town will vote to celehrate with suitable public 
exercises the oue hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation; and to 
raise money for that purpose agreeable to the petition of B. Greene and others. 

At the annual meeting of the town, held March 5, 1888, the 

following votes were passed : 

Voted, That the town celebrate with appropriate public exercises the one 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation, which falls on the sixth day 
of February, 1889; and that the sum of five hundred dollars he added to the tax 
levy and appropriated to meet the expenses of such celebration. 

Voted, That a General Committee of twelve citizens be appointed and author- 
ized to act for the town in making arrangements for such a celebration, to 
determine the time, to prepare a programme for the occasion and see that it is 
duly carried out, and to expend the money appropriated for that purpose. 

Voted, That the following gentlemen be appointed and constituted the General 
Committee in charge of the celebration; and that they be authorized to fill vacan- 
cies in their own number and to appoint other persons to act with them on sub- 
committees, so far as may be expedient in order to secure the accomplishment of 
the object of the celebration. 

Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, Henry W. Wheeler, 
Charles J. Gtlman, John Furbish, 

Daniel H. Stone, Henry Johnson, 

Albert G-. Tenney, Sumner L. Holbrook, 

Lemuel H. Stover, William M. Pennell, 

Ira P. Booker, Isaac Hacker. 



This action of the town was supplemented at its annual meeting 
in 1889. The General Committee, finding that the amount of money 



2 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



at its disposal would be inadequate to meet the cost of such a cele- 
bration as had been decided upon, procured the insertion of the 
following article in the warrant for the town meeting : 

Art. 17. To see if the town will vote any additional amount of money to 
that already voted for the purpose of celebrating the one hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of the incorporation of the town and raise money for the same, 
agreeable to the petition of John Furbish and others. 

At the annual meeting of the town, held March 4, 1889, the fol- 
lowing vote was passed : 

Voted, That the sum of five hundred dollars be raised by taxation and appro- 
priated towards defraying the expense attending the celebration of the one 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town. 

In addition to the one thousand dollars appropriated by the town 
the General Committee received from Bowdoin College the sum of 
one hundred dollars which was voted in aid of the celebration at the 
annual meeting of the Boards in 1888. Miss Salome H. Snow also, 
without solicitation, sent her check for fifty dollars, and a consider- 
able sum was raised by subscription for particular features of the 
celebration, as shown in the financial statement in the appendix. 
The committee had, therefore, abundant resources for the successful 
accomplishment of their purposes. 

There were twenty meetings of the General Committee, the first 
occurring March 26, 1888, and the last October 10, 1889. The first 
meeting of the General Committee was called to order by the Chair- 
man of the Board of Selectmen, Mr. Frank E. Roberts, and he was 
made the permanent chairman of the committee. Mr. Henry W. 
Wheeler was elected Secretary, and Mr. Lemuel H. Stover, Treas- 
urer. At this meeting a proposition that the celebration occur 
on the actual anniversary of the date of the incorporation was 
tabled, and at the next meeting, held April 17, 1888, the date for 
the celebration was fixed for June 13, 1889, and Messrs. Henry W. 
Wheeler, Ira P. Booker, and Heniy Johnson were chosen a com- 
mittee to arrange a complete programme for the celebration, to be 
submitted to the General Committee for its consideration. At the 
next meeting, May 21, 1888, the committee chosen at the previous 
meeting reported a general programme for the celebration, with 
details of its various features. The report was accepted and the 
programme, in all its essential features, was adopted by the General 
Committee. One or two additions were made subsequently by the 
General Committee, but the programme as finally carried out was 
substantially that which was first proposed. At this meeting Pro- 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



3 



fessor Charles Carroll Everett, of Harvard University, a native of 
Brunswick, was unanimously elected Orator for the occasion, and 
Professor Henry Leland Chapman, of Bowcloiu College, was unani- 
mously elected Poet. No further action of importance was taken 
by the General Committee until February 11, 1889, when it was 
voted to ask the town for a second appropriation of five hundred 
dollars in aid of the celebration. At the next meeting, March 7, 
1889, Dr. -Alfred Mitchell was unanimously elected President of the 
Day, and various special committees were chosen, a full list of which 
is given in the appendix. Dr. James W. Curtis was elected a 
member of the General Committee, vice Daniel H. Stone, deceased. 
April 11, 1889, Mr. Henry W. Wheeler asked to be excused from 
serving longer as Secretary of the General Committee. His resigna- 
tion was accepted and Professor Henry Johnson was elected Secre- 
tary. At this meeting it was voted to invite the following-named 
persons to attend the celebration as guests of the town : 

The Governor of Maine and his Staff. 

The Congressional Delegation from Maine. 

The Selectmen of Topsham. 

The Selectmen of Harpswell. 

Doctor George A. Wheeler of Castine, Me. 

(Senior Historian of Brunswick). 

Other meetings of the General Committee were held previous to the 

celebration, at which matters of detail not of sufficient permanent 

interest for publication in these pages were attended to. 

At a meeting held September 9, 1889. the Treasurer reported 

that all bills had been paid and that there was a balance of one 

hundred and twenty-eight dollars and fifty-one cents in the treasury. 

It was thereupon 

Voted, That the Treasurer of the General Committee is authorized to pay the 
sum of one hundred and twenty-eight dollars and fifty-one cents to the Treasurer 
of the Pejepscot Historical Society to aid in the publication of an account of the 
celebration to be printed under the auspices of that Society. 

It was also voted to deposit in the archives of the Pejepscot 

Historical Society, for preservation, the records and papers of the 

General Committee. The final meeting of the General Committee 

was held October 10, 1889, at which the Auditor's Report (which 

will be found in the appendix) was read and accepted, and the 

following resolutions were passed : 

Resolved, That the General Committee for itself and in behalf of the citizens 
of the town desires to express to Professor Charles Carroll Everett sincere thanks 



4 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



for his eloquent and scholarly oration; to Professor Henry Leland Chapman for 
his appropriate and beautiful poem, and to Dr. Alfred Mitchell for the able and 
graceful manner in which he performed his duty as President of the Day. 

Resolved, That the success of the celebration was largely due to the efficient 
labors of the various special committees, the members of which worked with an 
energy and zeal which entitle them to the warmest commendation, and that the 
General Committee acknowledges the cooperation and aid thus received. 

Some time previous to tbe celebration cards of invitation were 
sent, under the direction of the Committee on Printing, to all former 
residents of Brunswick whose addresses could be obtained and to 
other persons who were supposed to take an interest in the town 
and in the celebration. Four hundred and ninety-seven invitations 
were thus distributed by the committee and many more were sent 
by individuals, over eight hundred invitations having been furnished 
to citizens at a nominal price. The invitation was engraved on steel 
and is reproduced on another page. 

Posters, of which the following is a copy, were sent to all the 
neighboring towns and to the principal places along the lines of the 
various railroads in this section of the State. 




f-OR^" 6e°F\GE: )$UILT \]\$; "" v 

m w i 1 1 celebrate the 
@ne j=[undped and p*iftie+h ^nniVersap| 
> - 0$ lj Y& inco^pof^at ion - 

1719 .^Etms*,^my 



/^^^^^^^^^^ serf?/ /&£e/ /tf/w/?y/t/i^kz^ 




INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



5 



CELEBRATION 

OF THE 

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 



OF THE INCORPORATION 

OF THE 

TOWN OF BRUNSWICK, 
June 13, 1889. 



Salutes will be fired at sunrise, upon the arrival of the Governor, and at sunset, and the 
bells of the Toavu -will be rung. 

Fantastic Parade at 7.30 a.m. 

An Oration will be delivered at the Congregational Church, by Professor C. C. Everett, 
of Harvard University, and a Poem by Professor H. L. Chapman, 
of Bowdoin College, at 9.30 a.m. 



A GRAND PROCESSION 



Will march through the principal streets of the town at 12 M. 

A Public Dinner will be held at the Town Hall, at which Speeches will be made by 
Distinguished Guests and Prominent Citizens, at 1.30 P.M. 

Tickets at $1.00 each may be had of Mr. E. A. Will. As the number is limited, applica- 
tions should be made early. 

Base-Ball Game 

On the Delta at 3.30 p.m. 

BOWDOINS VS. PRESUMPSCOTS. 

A RECEPTION will be held in the TOWN HALL in the evening at 8. 
Fireworks at 9.30 P.M. 



A COLLECTION OF LOCAL ANTIQUITIES 

Will be open to the Public at the Court Room, in Town Building, on Thursday, Friday, 

and Saturday. 

Railroad Fare.— One Fare for the Round Trip on Maine Central, Knox & Lincoln, 
Grand Trunk, and Portland & Rochester Railroads on the 12th and 13th; good to return on 
the 14th. 



6 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



A few days previous to the celebration various tablets were set 
up by the committee having charge of that work. Upon the town 
building they placed a solid bronze tablet tastefully designed and 
executed, bearing the following inscription : 

BRUNSWICK 
First Settled in 1628; 
Incorporated as a Township, 1717; 
Incorporated as a town, Feb. 6, 1739; 
(January 26, 1738, O. S.). 

Neatly painted wooden tablets of ornamental design, and with 
appropriate inscriptions, were placed upon the following historic 
spots : Site of Fort George, at the northern end of Main Street ; 
site of Fort Andros, on the store of F. C. Webb & Co. ; site of 
McFarland's Block House, on Day's Block, corner of Main and 
Mason Streets ; site of Dunning's Block House, on the cottage 
opposite the south entrance to the Town Building ; site of the First 
Town House, on Main Street, south of the residence of Mrs. Charles 
Packard ; and on the site of the First Meeting House, about a mile south 
of the colleges. The material for these wooden tablets was donated 
by Mr. D. A. Booker, and they were made without charge by 
Mr. Thomas S. Melcher. Temporary placards, with suitable inscrip- 
tions, were placed upon the following buildings : upon the residence 
of Mrs. William G. Barrows to designate the residence of Henry 
W. Longfellow when he was a Professor in Bowdoin College ; upon 
the residence of Mrs. Ellen F. Lincoln, the oldest house in the 
village ; upon the residence of Mr. Samuel Whitmore, in which Mrs. 
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; and upon 
various old buildings to show the date of their erection. 

On the Sunday preceding the Celebration an " Historical Observ- 
ance of the formation of ' The Church of Christ, in Brunswick,' " 
was held in the First Parish Church, at which the following was the 
order of exercises : 

MORNING SERVICE. 

Organ Prelude. Gloria Patri. 

Invocation. Scripture Reading. 

Psalm 103. Anthem. 

Prayer. 

Hymn 1019, " Oh Where are Kings and Empires Now? " 

Historical Discourse by the Pastor, William P. Fisher. 

Hymn 885, " I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord." 
Prayer with Benediction. 



IXCORPOB ATION OF 1 5 R CJNS WICK 



EVENING SERVICE. 

Organ Prelude. 

Welcome by the Pastor. 

Hymn 339, " All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." 

Scripture Reading. 

Prayer. 

Anthem, "And the Glory of the Lord." — Handel. 

Address, by Professor William A. Packard. 

Address,, by 'Professor Egbert C. Smyth. 

Hymn, prepared for the occasion. 

Address, by the Reverend Ezra H. Byington. 

Address by the Reverend Aaron C. Adams. 

Hymn 248, " O God Our Help in Ages Past." 
Prayer with Benediction. 



HYMN 

By the Reverend Samuel V. Cole. 
Tune — Louvan, Page 65. 

O thou to whom the mighty spheres 
Have sung forever, guided well, 
We praise Thee for the signs that tell 

Thy guidance in our moving years: 

The peace that follows after strife, 

And, in the shade, the growing light, 
The clearer vision of the right, 

The larger hope, the ampler life. 

We sing the old song still — we sing 
Of faith in one eternal plan, 
Which thou hast, written out for man 

And the enfolding ages bring. 

To right nor left Thy purpose sways, 

But moves toward better things to be ; 
For thou art faithful. O that we 

Be faithful in our works, and days. 



THE CELEBRATION. 



The day opened with ringing of bells and firing a national salute 
of one hundred and fifty guns at sunrise. The salute was fired by 
a section of men from the Second Platoon of the First Maine 
Battery, under command of Captain O. T. Despeaux, and occupied 
fifty-three minutes. 

A Parade of Fantastics, which was an unusually large and fine 
affair of the kind, took place at 7.30. The procession formed at 
Woodlawn and marched through the principal streets of the town, 
disbanding in front of the Tontine Hotel at 8.30. It was under the 
superintendence of the Chief Marshal of the clay, C. E. Townsend, 
and was accompanied by two bands. Numerous comic groups were 
presented, and at the close two prizes were awarded — ten dollars 
in gold to the group entitled "Is Marriage a Failure?" and five 
dollars to "The Darktown Fire Company." 

During the morning a trial of fire engines took place between 
the Niagara Company, No. 3, of Brunswick and the General Bates of 
Lisbon Falls. The prize, a silver pitcher, was won by the General 
Bates Company. 

On the arrival of the Governor and his Staff on the train from 
Augusta a " Governor's salute" of seventeen guns was fired. 

At 9.30 the bell of the Congregational Church summoned citizens 
and visitors to listen to the literary exercises of the day. The Gov- 
ernor and his Staff and other invited guests, together with some of 
the venerable citizens of Brunswick were seated on the. platform, 
and the exercises were carried out in accordance with the following 
programme : 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



1739. EXERCISES 1889 - 

In Congregational Church, Brunsayick, 

Thursday, June 13, 1889, 
At 9.30 A.M., 

CELEBRATING 

THE 

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
Of the Incorporation of the Town. 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



President of the Day, Dr. Alfred Mitchell. 

Organ Voluntary, Miss M. W. Swett. 

Reading of Scripture and Prayer, Rev. W. P. Fisher. 

Commemorative Ode, Chorus. 

Oration, Prof. C. C. Everett. 

Music, Chorus. 

Poem, Prof. H. L. Chapman. 

Hymn — "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne," 

Lined out and sung by Congregation. 
Benediction, Rev. G. P. Mathews. 

Before Jehovah's awful throne 

Ye nations how with sacred joy; 
Know that the Lord is God alone; 

He can create and He destroy. 

His sovereign power, without our aid, 
Made us o"f clay, and formed us men; 

And when, like wandering sheep, we strayed, 
He brought us to His fold again. 

We'll crowd Thy gates with thankful songs, 
High as the heavens our voices raise; 

And earth, with all her thousand tongues, 
Shall fill Thy courts with sounding praise. 

Wide as the world is Thy command, 

Vast as eternity Thy love; 
Firm as a rock Thy truth shall stand, 

When rolling years shall cease to move. 



COMMEMORATIVE ODE. 



Miss Charlotte Mellen Packard. 



We sing the years that pass 
Like shadows o'er the grass 

At summer's prime ; 
We sing of life's deep flow 
Of men that come and go, 
Their deeds for weal or woe 

Held fast by time. 

We reap the harvest sown 
By faithful hands unknown, 

Eeap fruit or flower; 
They feared not fortune's frown — 
The nameless ones — whose crown 
Is to have handed down 

This golden hour. 

Theirs was the strain and stress 
Through thorny wilderness 

A path to win; 
By many a stubborn foe 
Nobly at last laid low, 
Their labors high we know 

Who enter in. 

Guard we our sacred trust ! 
Peace after battle dust 

And learning free. 
Secure in homes so fair, 
We breathe as common air 
The good they might not share, 

Whose sons are we. 

Thou to whose boundless thought 
The ages are as naught, 

The soul is dear, 
Teach us that wisdom true 
In which our fathers grew, 
The springs of faith renew, 

Teach us Thy fear! 



ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE DAY. 



Doctor Alfred Mitchell. 



Fellow -Townsmen, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The custom of anniversary celebration has long been 
regarded as one of peculiar and delightful interest. Not 
only does it serve to awaken the best feelings and emotions 
of those who live in the place of such a commemoration, but 
it also stirs the most sacred and tender sentiments of affection 
in the hearts of those who have been long and far absent from 
the scenes and associations of youth and childhood. 

Evidently the degree of interest, the depth of feeling, will 
be commensurate with the attractions and characteristics of 
the home of such an anniversary. 

It is not my province as the presiding officer of this 
assembly even to attempt to bring before you in any clearer 
light than you now behold and know them, the natural 
beauties, the precious historical reminiscences, the unsurpassed 
intellectual and social features which adorn and distinguish 
our favored heritage. 

The loveliness of our outlying islands and headlands, the 
gleam of our sunlit bay, the charm of our winding and falling 
river with its forest-crowned hills and grassy intervales, our 
broad avenues with their leafy verdure, will all appear before 
you clothed in new vestures of living light under the touch 
and speech of those who are about to address you. 

The loyal deeds of former and recent wars, the struggles 
with various obstacles which have prevailed until the mere 
settlement has increased a hundred fold, the development of 
trade and manufacture, the building up of the institutions of 



12 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



religion and education will be so set before us as to renew and 
revive our pride and admiration ; and our college will be 
recognized as one which has represented itself and our dear 
old town in all the countries under the sun, and has influenced 
our social life, our educational system, our churches, and our 
municipal affairs in numberless ways for our good and advance- 
ment. 

We ought to count ourselves fortunate that we live in a 
time when many lines of rapid conveyance have brought to 
us our loyal townsmen and friends from far and near ; fortu- 
nate also in this "rare day in June," in this hallowed and 
historic place of meeting whose walls and arches seem even 
now to echo the magnificent tone of Everett's tribute to our 
immortal Washington, the melodious cadences of " Morituri 
Salutamus," and to thunder with the applause which greeted 
the nation's great and silent general. We can almost seem to 
see and feel the venerated presence of those who so long sat 
here in their accustomed places, whose worship of God, service 
to man, and love of this beautiful town ought to serve as a 
perpetual example to us all ; for have we not all felt the last 
living touch and influence of the generations who "all are 
gone into the land of shadows " through him of whom it can 
no longer be said that "living we salute " ? 

Especially do we congratulate ourselves in the choice of 
those who are to address us. The one, the son of a former 
venerable and much-honored citizen, a graduate of our college 
and afterwards associated in its instruction ; now Harvard 
holds him in high repute, and everywhere he is known in the 
world of letters and among Christian scholars as a leader in 
the best fields of thought and culture. Of the other I have 
surely only to speak your own thoughts when I allude to him 
as one whose warmth of affection for our town and interest in 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



13 



its welfare, is not less than that of the noblest "to the manner 
born "; of his long and loyal service to the college we are all 
swift and ready witnesses; his facile pen and graceful speech 
adorn all that they handle or utter. 

It remains for me, before your eager expectancy shall be 
satisfied by their words to express our grateful appreciation of 
the compliment afforded us in the distinguished presence of 
the Governor of our State and our representatives in the 
national Congress, and to assure them that our love and fealty 
to State and country is not less strong and unswerving than 
that which we bear to our town ; also to extend to those who 
have come from abroad a most cordial welcome and greeting 
not only to our public festivities but to our "hearts and homes," 
and to make known to them our earnest desire that the 
renewal of old associations and the revisiting of former scenes 
may afford them unalloyed pleasure. 

Meanwhile let those of us who have long dwelt in this 
fortunate town and who will here continue to dwell, coming 
from farm and study, from trade and manufacture enter with 
a glad and tender spirit into the true expression of this long 
to be remembered and happy anniversary ; and while we 
rejoice in the present let us seek for all the inspiration to 
future high and noble endeavor for ourselves and our homes 
which shall spring from the recital of the deeds and lives of 
the generations that have gone before us. 



ORATION. 



Professor Charles Carroll Everett. 



We gather to celebrate the birthday of a town. From 
certain points of view it might seem as if this were hardly 
worth the celebrating. The world is full of towns. There 
are hundreds of thousands which no man can number. Think 
how they have sprung up all over our country like the grass 
on the prairies. Think how they are springing up to-day, — 
springing up in fluttering canvas that in a few months will 
harden into wood, and in a year or two, perhaps, into brick or 
stone. The first flower of the spring we greet with delight ; 
but when our fields and gardens are full of flowers, how little 
we notice or care for the opening of one or another. 

A better comparison is suggested by the lives of men. 
Among the uncounted multitudes of men that throng the 
earth, there are few whose birthday has not an interest for 
some. Each commemorates it for himself; and about each is 
.a larger or smaller circle to whom it is in some degree sacred. 
What is the birth of an individual to the birth of a town? 
It is the town that makes the life of the individual in any sense 
possible. It is the town that brings a certain refining and 
elevating element into life. If the town is in certain aspects 
degrading, it is in other and more essential aspects uplifting. 
The very word " civilization " is derived from a word meaning 
citizen, and the words " urbane " and " urbanity," which have 
such sweetness of significance, derive their meaning from the 
idea of city life. Men, it is true, often live in the country 
happier and better lives than are common in the town ; but it 
is the town that, to a very large extent, makes such life in the 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



15 



country possible. It is the town that unites the scattered life 
of the country into a sense of community. It is in the town 
that the books and newspapers are printed or purchased which 
make the quiet of the country alive with intellectual activity, — 
books which interpret to the dweller in the country the beauty 
in the midst of which he lives, and newspapers which bring to 
the most retired door the stirring life of the whole world. It 
is from the town that come the paintings and engravings which 
ornament the farm-house wall. It is the town that furnishes 
the market which makes possible the farm. The town is 
the ganglion that receives and dispenses the energy of the 
world. It receives from the country the material of living, 
and sends back refinement and stimulus and the sense of a 
larger life. 

The town is the essential thing in a nation. The town is a 
unit. It is the unit out of which nations consist. The organ- 
ization of the town is spontaneous and inevitable. The 
grouping of towns into larger relationships has something 
contrived and artificial about it. Let the nation become 
broken up ; let the central government be paralyzed so that its 
influence will no longer thrill through the ramifications of 
society ; let the state government be paralyzed ; and here in 
the town we might hardly know it. Our postal facilities would 
be disturbed, but all else might go on for the time undisturbed. 
In the town, the nation strikes its root into the soil. The 
state government and the national government are represen- 
tative. They represent the town. In the town we take things 
at first hand, and do our business for ourselves. 

Much of what I have said finds its best illustration in what 
we call distinctively the town in contrast with the city. In 
the town there is much of the beauty and the refining influ- 
ence of the city with little of its degradation. In the town is 



16 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



fulfilled the ideal to which I referred, that of doing our own 
business at first hand. The city has itself become representa- 
tive. There are the wards, which are merely artificial divis- 
ions. In these the voters gather to cast their suffrage for men 
of whom perhaps they have never before heard. Possibly 
some question, such as the regulation or suppression of the 
liquor traffic, is submitted to their votes, though not to their 
debate. There is no sense of unity, no common meeting. 
Men drop in and cast their votes and go out, leaving their 
place for others. For the most part they vote as their party 
leaders direct. How different from this is the town meeting. 
In the town meeting we come together and look into one 
another's faces and hear one another's voices. Here we do 
our own business for ourselves. We discuss roads and bridges 
and schools. We hear what is said for and against any 
measure and decide for ourselves. This is the true and the 
only true democracy. In this there is the true dignity of 
citizenship. In this is the true education that is said so often 
to spring from a republican government. Here every man 
has a sense of responsibility. The dullest wits are quickened. 
The most quiet man may be surprised to find himself an 
orator. The self-asserting man may find his conceit taken out 
of him. I will not say that I hope that Brunswick will long 
remain the most important town in the State, rather than take 
its place among the smaller cities. This would be to put my 
hope against that expansion of the life and business of the 
place which we all feel to be both inevitable and desirable. 
Doubtless the time will come when even our town hall will be 
too small for the thronging voters of Brunswick. At least I 
can hope without disloyalty to our faith and our pride in the 
town that we love, that the change from the dignity of the 
town meeting to the perfunctoriness of the ward room, and 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



17 



the indirect and often questionable methods of the common 
council, may be put off as long as possible. 

We have thus looked at the town merely in what may be 
called its external relations. When we look at it from within, 
the significance of the anniversary is still more marked. For 
how many lives does it stand! Of how many tender experi- 
ences has it been the enfolder ! What gladness of childhood, 
what enthusiasm of youth, what beauty of romance, what 
depths of sorrow, how many comedies, how many tragedies, 
have their place within it ! And all this is not for one gener- 
ation only, but for generation after generation. No sooner 
does one company that has performed the tragedy or the farce 
leave the stage than another takes its place. Or rather, the 
new press upon the old before their parts are played out. 
Thus does the procession move on uninterrupted and endless. 
And for those who go forth from it to find a home elsewhere, 
of what tender memories is it the centre ! By what shining 
and elastic cords of association, invisible to all but themselves, 
are they bound to it wherever they may go and whatever new 
experiences may await them ! If the birthday of an individual 
should be celebrated, how much more the birthday of a town, 
which stands for such multitudes of individual lives. 

There are men not widely known, not leaders in peace or 
war, whose birthday excites within the circle of their acquaint- 
ance an interest which it would not always be easy to explain. 
It springs neither from their genius nor their accomplishments. 
Perhaps it may be their sterling worth that gives rise to this 
interest. Perhaps it is a certain genial courtesy that marks 
them. Perhaps it is only that mysterious something which we 
call "personality." Whatever it is, it adds a special charm 
and interest to their anniversary. The same is true of towns. 
There are towns that have something of this unnameable yet 

B 



18 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



irresistible charm. Perhaps, to most men, their native town 
seems thns exceptional. I cannot, however, believe that it is 
merely this subjective illusion which makes Brunswick seem to 
us to have a character and an attractiveness of its own. This 
confidence perhaps it would not be easy to justify by words. 
Brunswick has filled its place in the state and nation. It has 
furnished its share of men who have been prominent in the 
state and the army and the church. We are proud of them 
to-day. But it is not this that gives to its name the special 
significance of which I speak. Perhaps it is in part the charm 
of its situation. It is, indeed, surrounded by no magnificent 
scenery of which it is simply an added feature. The town is 
the centre to which the nature about it is tributary. There is 
the river which curves about it as if with a gentle caress. 
There are the falls in their beauty and the rocks that rise by 
their side, while the noise and jar of mills and the pungent 
odor of freshly-sawed boards add something to the charm 
of the scene, so far as the practical mind is concerned, and 
hardly lessen it for the lover of the picturesque. There are 
the pines that stand in their stateliness encircling the village; 
and there is, not far off, the sea, whose breath comes softened 
and strained through the pine forest. Within, there are the 
broad and shady streets and the pleasant mall. There is the 
church in which we are gathered, somewhat shorn of its 
original beauty, to be sure, but still a striking figure in its 
prominent position ; and beyond the church there is the 
college yard, sometimes so full of life; but in the vacation 
seeming, shut in as it is by its hedge of lofty trees, with its 
smooth, unbroken beauty of grass, with its fair chapel and its 
quiet halls, as if it might be the scene of a new story of some 
"sleeping beauty." Behind the college is the spot to which 
many hearts turn with the tenderest love; a peaceful, sunny 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



19 



nook, about which stand the solemn pines, it and they together 
symbolizing the glad and the sorrowful memories that mingle 
there. 

It is very pleasant, early of a summer evening, to pass from 
the classic shades of the college to the lower end of the town, 
in which one finds one's self as if in another world. The 
bright faces and the lively jargon of the French create for the 
moment the illusion of being in some foreign land. 

If from this outward picture, we turn to the inner life of 
the place, we recognize a population that, to us at least, seems 
more intelligent and refined than that which belongs to most 
villages of its type. There have been generations of modest 
and sterling citizens and quiet, pleasant homes. When I knew 
the town most intimately there was a society that for its charm 
could hardly be surpassed. Think for a moment what the 
college has done for the town in this respect. Think what citi- 
zens it has brought to us as presidents and as teachers. Bow- 
doin College, like Brunswick, has a character of its own. Here 
again it may be the result of personal interest and association, 
but I confess that it seems to stand out from among the colleges 
of its class, if indeed there are any colleges precisely of its class. 
Think, I say, of the men and of the families that it has brought 
to us. There were the early presidents whose descendants 
remained to add to the stability and the charm of the place. 
Their features are known to us by the familiar engravings. 
McKeen, whose face is marked by mingled sweetness and 
strength; while the thoughtful spirituality of Appleton makes 
itself still felt by us in spite of the passing of the years. Not 
to name the living or to go back beyond the memory of many 
of us, what dignity and graciousness were added to the town 
by the presence of Leonard Woods. Where could we find in 
these later generations a man precisely of his type? There 



20 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



was something of a mediaeval richness in his nature. Even his 
voice gave some hint of the quality of his mind. Of those 
whom the college has brought to us as teachers I dare not 
begin to speak. The personal characteristics of some of them 
stand out, in memory or tradition, as sharply defined as those 
of some strong work of fiction, and some are held to-day in 
tender remembrance. The presence of the students, these 
waves of young men coming year after year, may be also reck- 
oned among the elements that have given to the town its dis- 
tinctive quality. It is pleasant to think how many of those 
who were for a little while among us, will feel a special inter- 
est in our celebration to-day. From how many widely sundered 
regions of the earth the thoughts turn to as, of those who 
remember Brunswick as we remember them. 

I have thus attempted, in an imperfect way, to explain the 
characteristics of our town which may justify our special feel- 
ing towards it. Whether it may be thus justified or not, the 
feeling is there, and it is this that inspires our gathering to-day. 
The feeling will not be satisfied on an occasion like this with- 
out a glance backward at the history of the town we love. 
I am not an historian or an antiquarian. Even if I were, the 
labors of John McKeen and of the brothers Wheeler, whose 
admirable history is, or should be, familiar to you all, and of 
those whose results our historical society has published, would 
leave little opportunity for fresh discovery. I shall not attempt 
even by their aid to present a formal history of the town. 
But to-day our thoughts turn backward, and we cannot do 
better than to grant them a free range. I shall then recall a 
few of the most important epochs in the history of the place, 
in a way rather to quicken the imagination than to inform the 
mind. Indeed it is only by some strain upon the imagination 
that we can realize the changes which the spot where we 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



21 



stand has known. In this superficial glance we will not go 
beyond that of which we can find some record specially 
preserved. 

The first appearance of this place, so far as any record has 
been preserved, is something which it is impossible for our 
imagination worthily to reproduce. Where are now forests and 
gardens and homes, was simply a vast area of ice. In which- 
ever direction the gaze could turn, if the fancy can suggest the 
fantastic notions of a gazer among these wastes, stretched the 
mighty glacier as it crept along its sluggish way from the 
mountains to the sea. We go to Switzerland and are awed by 
the glaciers there; but what is the sublimity even of the Mer 
de Glace when compared with this glacier which covered a 
large part of the continent. There was no plant, there was 
no life of bird or beast. There was only this frozen solitude. 
I said that we would not go back further than the records of 
the town would justify us, and of this strange experience in 
the past the records remain upon the enduring rocks, over 
which the slow grinding movement passed. We look with 
awe that is almost horror upon this scene, when our Brunswick 
was so different from what it is to-day. But this terrible 
monster that crawled over our plains was working for us, and 
making possible fruitful fields and smiling gardens. Ages 
- came and passed and the ice still stretched in its terrible deso- 
lateness. Ages came and passed and at last the strange presence 
disappeared. After unnumbered centuries it was followed by 
a condition of things no less strange and no less foreign to our 
present experiences than it. By imperceptible degrees the 
region sank beneath the sea. Where our gardens are to-day 
the sea-weed was the only growth. Where is now the hum 
of busy life moved only the silent inhabitants of the ocean 
depths. Of this baptism in the sea the record also remains 



22 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



in the mussel-beds, which testify of long and undisturbed 
possession. 

Before the curtain lifts again unnumbered ages had fled, 
and the face of nature had undergone wonderful transforma- 
tions. Instead of the death of the ice-fields and the swing of 
the tides, we can see, at last, life. There is the life of the for- 
est, the majesty of trees ; not the pines which are so dear to us, 
but oaks and beeches and other hard wood trees. There was 
the life of animals, the bear, the wolf, and the moose. There 
was the life of man. Here the Indian lived and loved and 
hunted and made war. We picture him moving through the 
forest depths, almost as silently as his predecessors of the finny 
tribes moved through the expanses of the sea. Here he buried 
his dead, and here, if tradition speaks the truth, the relics of 
these burials have been found. Who would think that this 
forest wild, inhabited by savage beasts and savage men, was 
our Brunswick with its comfort and its peace. 

At last the Anglo-Saxon appeared upon the scene. At last 
we pass out from the eternities and meet a date, which is as 
pleasant as the sight of the first headland after a long and tem- 
pestuous voyage. About the year 1628, some two hundred 
and sixty years ago, came the first settlers. We will recall 
to-day the name of Thomas Purchase. It is a pity that we 
could not have in some central place a statue to his memory, 
like that fictitious, but symbolic figure which commemorates 
to Harvard College the spirit, if not the features, of its founder. 
In the case of Thomas Purchase it would be simply the 
pioneer that we should honor. What he was other than that 
we cannot say. Of his virtues or of his failings we have little 
record. He probably had both in the full measure of the 
frontierman's life. The Indians, at least, believed that he had 
cheated them in trade, both by exorbitant prices and the quality 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



23 



of goods. I suppose we may safely assume that they were 
not wholly wrong. The Indians were in those days considered 
fair game, and we cannot say, even in our time, that we have 
wholly passed beyond the stage in which the weakness and the 
ignorance of the Indian furnish reason enough for outwitting 
and oppressing him. But whatever may have been the virtues 
or the vices of Thomas Purchase, his coming made an epoch 
hardly less important than the changes in the physical world 
at which we have just glanced. It was not he who came, it 
was the Anglo-Saxon race that came in him. 

Whatever may have been his rudeness, his coming meant 
civilization. It meant schools and colleges and the unceasing 
productivity of the press. Whatever his faults, his coming 
meant Christianity. Whatever his loneliness, his coming 
meant this fair town. Whatever his hardships, his coming 
meant our comfort. But to the Indian it meant destruction. 
He seemed so weak among them ! They could sack his house, 
they could drive him away. What was he, the man with his 
little family about him, alone in the wilderness, alone among 
the savage hordes? But his coming meant their destruction. 
The deadly work began at his first appearing. Its first instru- 
ment was rum. His coming meant, as I have said, the destruc- 
tion of the Indian ; but before his destruction it meant his 
degradation. Thomas Purchase did something to lessen this 
latter doom, inasmuch as it would appear that the rum which 
he sold was largely watered. At least one Indian complained 
that he had paid a hundred pounds for water drawn out of 
" Purchase his well." I fear, however, that the water was not 
added till the liquor had begun to do its work. There is 
something pathetic in the elaborate deed full of " whereases " 
and " af oresaids " and other legal phraseology, in which the 
Indian chiefs signed away much of their inheritance to later 



24 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



comers, each affixing his seal, the figure of a bow and arrow, 
or of a serpent, or some arbitrary device. For the coming of 
Thomas Purchase was like the first spicula of ice which is fol- 
lowed by the solid mass. He was followed, after some changes 
of less interest, by the Pejepscot Company, — Anglo-Saxon 
business enterprise following close upon Anglo-Saxon pluck. 
In 1715 the Pejepscot Company became possessed of what 
forms the site of eight towns, including Brunswick, Topsham, 
and Lewiston, and a part of four more. For this they paid 
£140. That, in the depreciated currency of the time, may be 
estimated at not far from $360. The first settlers bought lots 
of one hundred acres each for £5, which in 1737 would amount 
to about $4.30. Later this price was doubled for lots in Bruns- 
wick, while £25, or about $17.50, were paid for lots in the 
richer land of Topsham. This would seem pretty cheap for 
our land to-day, but considering the price that the company 
paid for it, we must judge that the speculation was a good one. 

Another element in the profits of the Pejepscot Company 
is found in the fact that they were obliged to pay no taxes. 
So soon as land was occupied by a settler he had to pay his 
tax, but the unappropriated land owned by non-residents was 
not taxed. Whether this distinction was based upon some 
aristocratic notion, like that which under the old regime in 
France made the common people pay taxes from which the 
nobles were exempt, taxes which being ground often out of the 
labor of the poor went largely into the pockets of the rich, 
or whether it was based upon the notion that land should not 
be taxed until it became productive, in either case the distinc- 
tion was an unfair one. The company was growing rich out 
of the sale of its lands; the occupants were with difficulty sup- 
porting themselves upon their several lots; yet the whole bur- 
den of taxation would seem to have fallen upon them. We 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



25 



cannot help sympathizing with the fathers of the town in their 
repeated protest against this, one might almost say, iniquitous 
arrangement. On the whole, however, we must be grateful to 
this company for bringing the land upon which our town 
stands into the market of the world, and for their general 
liberal arrangements. It was their wise and generous provision 
that laid out " the twelve-rod road," from the river to the sea, 
which, though unhappily shorn of its original proportions, still 
adds so much to the beauty of the place. One of their first 
thoughts was for the religious interests of the settlers. They 
early set apart land, both in Brunswick and Topsham, for a 
church, and aided in the erection of a church building. There 
would seem to have been as much difficulty in settling a min- 
ister in those days as there is to-day. Perhaps the best preachers 
or the best men in the ministry were not attracted to these 
eastern wilds. Sometimes objection is made to the character 
of the preachers. Sometimes a simple dissatisfaction is ex- 
pressed. Now and then there was regular preaching for a few 
years, but on account of the too critical attitude of the town, 
or from the fault of the minister, or his dissatisfaction with his 
surroundings, changes were frequent. The first preaching, so 
far as the towns-people were concerned, was incidental, being 
given by missionaries sent by the General Court to the Indians. 
In 1718, however, the people voted in town meeting to raise 
money for the support of a minister, and for the expense of his 
removal to the place. In 1719 the first meeting-house was 
begun. It was placed about a mile south of the colleges. 

The dates that I just gave are significant. In 1717 Bruns- 
wick was constituted a township. One of the first acts of this 
new township was to provide for a minister, and to build a 
church. In 1739 it was finally incorporated as a town, the 
eleventh in Maine. Thus, as the energy of the Anglo-Saxon 



26 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



pioneer was followed by Anglo-Saxon business enterprise, this, 
in its turn, was followed by Anglo-Saxon organization. This 
organization was made imperative by the circumstances of the 
case. 

There was among the people a rude energy. The spirit 
that brought them here would tend to make each stand by his 
own rights, or what he judged to be such. The Anglo-Saxon 
race is law abiding, but how can it be law abiding where there 
are no laws ? The town of Topsham was incorporated some- 
what later, and the turbulence that is recorded of that now so 
quiet village, shows the importance of the legal organization 
of a town. Indeed the organization was inevitable. The 
Anglo-Saxon is law making as well as law abiding. Just as 
surely as the plasma of the blood organizes according to the 
nature of the tissue with which it is in relation, so is there 
inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race this necessity of organization. 
Each group possesses also its plasma which tends to put on its 
fitting shape. This organization could be nothing but demo- 
cratic. The traditions of the past, by which in other lands 
men of the same race are still bound to the forms and to some 
of the realities of a monarchical or aristocratic society, had no 
force or meaning here in the wilderness. To this statement 
there must, however, be made one exception. It is hard to 
think of our Brunswick as a slave-holding town, yet in its early 
history, so late even as 1765, there were a few slaves in its 
population. Thus was formed, as soon as there was need and 
opportunity, an organization in which all, with the singular 
exception just named, were alike law-makers, and obeyers of 
the laws. Thus after the chaos of the forces of nature, after 
the wilderness, the home of beast and savage, after the lone- 
liness of the pioneer, we have at last a town, a member of a 
vast system of towns, orderly itself, and a part of a general order 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



27 



far greater than itself, a town that is to perform its full share of 
work in the civilization and the higher culture of the world. 

Who were the people who constituted this new town? 
This it would be hard to say, so far as all of them were con- 
cerned. Some we are told, had for some reason or other given 
up their old names when they left the old world. In the new 
world they not only entered upon a new life, but they entered 
upon it as new men. Some were doubtless driven from their 
early home by stress of outward circumstances, the nature of 
which we can only guess. More came inspired by that restless 
energy which stirs in the very fibre of our race. All doubtless 
came in the hope of building up a comfortable home, if not a 
fortune, in this new land of promise. Whatever their history, 
and whatever their motives, these settlers would seem to have 
been, on the whole, sturdy and honorable men, men relying 
upon themselves and such as others may rely upon. There 
was little record of crime, little of disorder, so far as these men 
were concerned. 

It is interesting to see in the early town meetings and 
business transactions of the place the names occurring which 
have had a place ever since in the annals of the town. Thus 
in the petition for the incorporation of the town in 1735, occur 
with others the familiar names of Dunning, Stanwood, Giveen, 
Spear, Larrabee, Woodside, and Dunlap. 

It is interesting to see one person after another lifted out of 
the obscurity of the past through some grave or trivial reason, 
and held up to the gaze of the world, in a single attitude 
sometimes, in which a moment has been made immortal. There 
are those whom I have named and many others who are remem- 
bered for their service to the town, who stand conspicuous in 
its history because in every moment of need their fellow- 
townsmen turned to them for aid in its affairs or trusted- them 



28 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



for counsel. Other names stand out for very different reasons. 
Thus the name of Granny Mitchell figures with the rest, to 
whom the town voted the sum of three pounds three shillings 
and eight pence. Less fortunately for her, figures Jeannie 
Eaton whose sole appearance in history is that she was sen- 
tenced to be stretched in the public stocks, and to have rotten 
eggs thrown at her by the passers by. The magistrate thought 
that he was sentencing her to an hour or two of disgrace. He 
did not know that he was sentencing her for all time, that she 
should sit in the stocks forever to receive the contempt or the 
pity of the gazers at her. 

In certain respects one of the most interesting personages 
that stands forth from the obscurity of these early days, is the 
Rev. Robert Dunlap. He was invited by the town to preach 
with a view to settlement in 1746. The next year he entered 
upon the regular duties of the minister of the town. He was 
paid as it would appear according to the custom of the time 
by money that was raised by a vote of the town, as a part of 
the regular tax. In 1760 there arose a difficulty between him 
and the town. The nature of this and the rights of the matter 
I do not know. As to Mr. Dunlap's claims upon our admira- 
tion in general I have nothing to say. What interests me in 
him is a letter written in the month of June, 1760. In this he 
insists upon two things : first, upon the payment of what he, 
rightly or wrongly, claimed to be due him from the town ; and, 
secondly, he insists, to use his own words, " That no man's 
monney or Rates Shall Ever Come Into my pocket or private 
use In aney shape: as ministerial taxes In this town; that Do's 
not adhere to my min' ry ." It is the utterance of a sentiment 
that was far ahead of his time. It is a recognition, apparently 
at his own cost, of the voluntary support of the ministry. 
Whatever may have been the faults and failings of the man, 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



29 



this honor belongs to him of recognizing and proposing the 
American method of supporting the services of the church. 

While a few names and personalities thus stand out among 
the rest, it is the life in general of the men and women who 
were the founders of our town that interests us the most. 
This life must have been a hard and wearisome one. It was 
full of anxiety, and must often have been full of hardship and 
suffering. After the days of Thomas Purchase, the settlement 
was nearly given up on account of the dread of the Indians, 
so that when the Pejepscot company took possession of it, the 
work had practically to begin again. During the Indian wars 
which followed, the number of settlers was again greatly 
reduced. They must have lived a great part of the time in 
constant terror. They had the protection of Fort George, a 
structure of stone that stood where some of the factoiy board- 
ing houses now stand ; and within this in times of special peril, 
the greater part of the population was forced together. Some 
of the houses were what were called block houses ; that is, 
they were practically forts. We with our mail service three 
times a day, can hardly realize that there was a time when the 
only mail was carried by a dog that had been trained to the 
business. He carried his packet to Bath in about two hours, 
and brought back the return mail. After he was killed in the 
service, he was for a time replaced by a young man who carried 
the mail by water; that is, he swam the greater part of the 
way. It was not a cheerful thing to know that if the children 
strayed too far in their sport, they would be seized by the 
Indians. It was not a cheerful thing for the men to feel that 
while they were at work in the field, the Indians might at any 
moment come upon them. By a strange instinct, one would 
like to know how far inherited, the cattle would always flee in 
terror as the Indians drew near ; thus they were placed between 



so 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



the workmen and the forest as scouts. Besides the Indians, 

there were wolves. As late as 1786 and 1792 parties were 

pursued by wolves, one near Middle bay, the other near Mere 

brook. Each escaped, only by throwing back, from time to 

time, the fish or the meat that he was carrying, by which the 

wolves were for a moment stayed. Worse unquestionably than 

the real wolves, was the proverbial wolf. They came only 

occasionally, but " to keep the wolf from the door" was an 

unceasing and difficult task. 

The fathers of our town were very poor. Cry after cry 

went up from these manly hearts to the General Court for 

remission of taxes that they found it impossible to pay. They 

urged that they were a frontier town ; that they bore the brunt 

of the peril. Others purchased their peace largely through 

their exposure. This service could not be performed at no 

cost of expenditure or loss. They held out the hope that with 

the encouragement which they seek they 44 in a few years may 

become a useful part of the province.'" These cries would 

seem to have been unheeded. It is not strange that they were 

during these times a serious and sad population. Poorly fed, 

poorly clothed, in constant peril, this peril every now and then 

fulfilling its threat in theft and murder, it was enough that • 

they could hold their position. It was enough that they could 

keep up strong hearts : glad hearts we could not expect. We 

are grateful to them that they kept up their self-respect. We 

are grateful that those who could afford it, kept up a certain 

state, and preserved on Sundays and other important occasions 

the dignity of dress that belonged to the elder days. We are 

grateful for t _ - 

° '-The old three-cornered hat 

And the breeches and all that," 
for the bush-wigs and the cues, and the shoe-buckles, and the 
powder with which the women showed that they still held up 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



31 



their heads in the social world. We are grateful for all this, 
because it takes from the poverty of our fathers the element 
of squalor. It shows that they kept up a good heart, that 
they respected themselves as they had a good right to do : and 
that they expected the world to respect them. Doubtless those, 
the greater number, who were often shoeless and who were 
more or less rudely clad, had also their self-respect increased 
by the dignity assumed by those who were able to support it ; 
though we cannot suppose that the quaint old-fashioned garb 
possessed to them anything of the picturesqueness which it 
has for us. 

The dark days passed, however. The town stood the test 
of hardship and suffering ; and the days of peace and prosperity 
were to come. The next great epoch in its history was the 
founding of Bowdoin College ; the bill establishing it having 
been passed in 1794, and the college opening with the class of 
eight in 1802. It was a wonderful change which had taken 
place when into this region, so little while before the home of 
savage beasts and hardly less savage men, there came the fair 
humanities ; when the grace of classic thought and the lore of 
the best ages of the past, were united here with the promise of 
the future. The time had come when in these woods the 
young poet was to receive his inspiration, whose songs were to 
charm the world : and here was to wander that brooding spirit 
whose genius was to glorify the colonial age of which the town 
had borne so much of the burden. One who was to be the 
nation's head was trained in the shadow of these pines ; and 
many another whose name was to become famous in war, in 
statesmanship, in poetry, or in thought, was to find his nurture 
here. And later, where the Indian medicine man had, so little 
while before, rudely applied such healing as he could extract 
from the few plants the virtue of which he knew, or guessed 



32 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



at, was to be placed a school in which should be taught the 
science of healing, as it is known to the best thought and study 
of the civilized world. 

After the founding of the college there was one more step 
which the town was to take to bring it into the circle of the 
world's activity. In 1809 was established a factory for the 
manufacture of cotton yarn. This was, however, only the 
forerunner of more elaborate and more successful undertak- 
ings. It showed that the time had come when the town could 
minister to the needs of the world, in a larger way than it 
had done before. The pressure of immediate need had fairly 
passed; and it could select its own method of giving and 
receiving in the exchange that binds communities together. 

The publication of a newspaper in 1820 forms an interest- 
ing epoch in the history of the place, for by the presence of 
such a paper a town first becomes conscious of itself. This 
publication was short-lived ; but it has been followed by a suc- 
cession of papers, sometimes very ably conducted, which have 
played an important part in local affairs. 

The anti-climax which we have followed — the church, the 
college, the factory — shows well the temper of the times, first 
the needs of spirit; then those of the intellect; and at last 
those of the outward life. 

Thus did the town fulfill the promise which it made when 
it asked for a relief from the burden of taxation, although the 
relief for which it asked had not been granted. In its whole 
history it has taken its part in all the great activities of the 
times through which it has endured. If there was war, its 
sons were ready to go forward to meet the foe. In the war of 
the Revolution the town, though then so weak, furnished at 
least 80 men. In the war of 1812, at least 331 Brunswick 
men took part. In the war of the Rebellion its roll of honor 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



33 



comprised some 358 ; and the quota of Brunswick added not 
merely so many brave and true men, but added also to the list 
of names that the country honored. In peace the town has 
also done and is still doing its whole part. Thus we stand 
here to-day in the comfort and prosperity of the present, with 
all those years of burden and privation behind us. We stand 
here and look forward to still greater achievement. We see 
the magnificent water-power which has yet hardly begun to 
work for us. It has done, and is doing much, it is true ; but 
w r hat it has done and is doing is little more than its play, com- 
pared with what it might, and, as we believe, at some time 
will accomplish. With this power the town sits practically in 
the center of the railway system of the State, ready to receive 
and to distribute. It has also its center of literary life ; so that 
let its enterprises expand as they will, it can never become that 
most intolerable of places, a town given over to mills and 
factories. It will unite enterprise and refinement. The homes 
made comfortable by business skill, will catch some beauty of 
taste and culture. What is this but to describe an ideal town? 

We have thus, with a rapid glance beheld mighty transfor- 
mations. We have seen the chaos of physical forces supplanted 
by life ; and barbarism supplanted by civilization. In this age 
of questioning, can we avoid looking beneath the surface of 
things, and asking : What has been the gain ? The first 
contrast suggests the question: Is life worth living? and if 
so, wherein lies its worth ? The second contrast suggests the 
question : In what respect is civilization better than barbarism ? 

The first of these questions I will merely name, and leave 
it as foreign to this occasion. Upon the second, which is more 
directly forced upon us by the events that we commemorate, 
we will in conclusion dwell for a few moments. We have 

supplanted the rude life of the savage ; what that is better 

c 



34 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



have we put into its place ? This may seem at first sight an 
idle question. The gain, has it not been uttered in the story 
that has been told ? Do not the comforts and the elegancies of 
our lives force upon us the reality of the gain ? Contrast with 
these the bare life of the savage, and what need we seek further 
to illustrate the mighty gain which history has made? But 
let us look more closely, let us condescend to question the facts 
more narrowly. We have comforts and elegancies ; the savage 
neither had them, nor wanted them ; how are we better off? I 
went once into the house of an Indian woman. It was fur- 
nished with hair-cloth chairs, sofa, and a rocking-chair. My 
hostess offered me a seat upon the sofa, then seated herself 
upon the floor. She had the furniture of civilization ; but, 
having it, she could afford so far as her own case was concerned, 
to despise it. We have warm houses, but what if the savage 
could keep himself warm without these appliances? We can 
go to England in a week and to the Pacific coast in less than a 
week. But what if he did not care to go to England, or to the 
Pacific coast? We have our telegraph. But, what if, as 
Emerson said : 

" The light out-speeding telegraph 
Bears nothing on its beam." 

Further, in comparing civilization with what we call the 
barbarism of the savage, it does not do to take merely the 
bright side of civilization and the dark side of barbarism. 
Civilization has also its dark side. It has hardships, sufferings, 
and crimes of which the barbarian knows nothing. It stands 
like some magnificent tree, fair in the sunlight, while its roots 
stretch deep and wide in the dark and noisome earth. 

But at least, you may say, we have our religion. Yes, we 
have our religion, so far as we do have it. This suggests what 
is the real answer to the question as to the gain which the 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



35 



Anolo-Saxon has brought into the laud where the Indian 
roamed. There is the possibility of a larger life. There is an 
ideal which may manifest itself in all the varied ramifications 
of our society. So far as the relationships of our life are 
concerned, this implies a fellowship which is bound by no limit 
of high or low, or of near or far. It assumes as its form 
democracy, or something that is practically equivalent to this; 
and within this human interest, the interests of the whole and 
of each individual, so far as the lesser do not conflict with the 
greater, are supreme. This is that for which civilization should 
stand. According as it does or does not stand for this, so far it 
has or it does not have worth. Civilization, by itself considered, 
is like a magnificent body. It is possible for this to be animated 
by a soul, and when this soul is present there is a fullness, a 
richness, and a loftiness of living that may justify the cost at 
which the triumph has been reached. The gain, it will thus 
be seen, is a possibility, not a necessity. One may be so 
entangled in the details, may have so narrow an outlook, and 
such narrow aims, even if his position be a fair one, that he 
shall not reach the good which lies at the heart of this nine- 
teenth century. At best the ideal is but vaguely and partially 
distinguished, and at best what is beheld is but partially made 
real. 

Consider that form of the ideal which we might suppose to 
be most perfectly fulfilled in this America, the ideal of democ- 
racy. How far is this from its fulfillment ? The fear was once 
of the tyranny of the majority. That peril may exist at some 
time to come ; we have not reached it yet. The tyranny from 
which we suffer is the tyranny of the minority. Look at one 
or two examples. The strike is the working man's one weapon 
of defense, as it is his inalienable right. When the oppression 
of capital can be no longer borne, then a strike, honestly and 



36 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



earnestly entered upon and carried out, may restore the social 
equilibrium, as a thunderbolt restores the equilibrium of the 
atmosphere. How few strikes are of this nature ! How many 
simply obey the demand of a blatant and defiant minority, 
while the man who under other circumstances would have died 
to preserve his liberty, stands as if bound hand and foot, and 
sees the fruits of a life-time vanish, and those whom he loves 
better than himself suffer because he does not dare to come to 
their relief ! Consider the spoils system in our politics. The 
country does not need it. I never heard it urged that a rail- 
road would be better managed if its employes were changed 
every four years, or oftener, if a change in the management 
has taken place. Is the business of our country of less impor- 
tance than that of a railway? You and I do not want this 
system. We want our business done in the simplest and most 
straightforward way possible. The two great parties of our 
country do not want it. They vie with one another in the 
strength of their condemnation. The Presidents selected by 
one or the other of the two great parties do not want it. They, 
too, denounce it, and when they yield to its demands, as who 
of them does not ? they claim that it is against their will. I 
cannot believe that oar Heads of Departments and our Con- 
gressmen in general want this system. It overburdens them 
with work which to most of them must be distasteful, and 
demands strength and time which could better be spent in the 
legitimate duties of their office ; though there may be some 
who are pleased to win in this manner an influence which they 
fear whatever talent they possess might not otherwise obtain. 
Who, then, does want it ? It is a minority to whom politics is 
a game, which, without this system of spoils, is as insipid as to 
an old gambler is a game of cards without stakes. I think it 
was Charles James Fox who said that the greatest pleasure in 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



37 



life next to winning at cards is losing at cards. So these men 
would rather see the spoils distributed by a successful opponent 
according to the rules of the game, then enjoy a victory 
which would be to them barren without this fruitage. More 
powerful even than these is the smaller minority to whom 
politics in its lowest form is not a game but a business, who 
grow rich by the buying and selling of votes, who make 
bargains and " deals " and who, whatever happens, find their 
gain. It is these who bend parties and Presidents and Con- 
gresses to their will. It is this minority that so far rules over 
us. 

I do not say this in any spirit of discouragement. We are 
gathered to " thank God and take courage." I refer to this 
great burden which rests upon us because the occasion itself 
suggests a hopeful outlook. In its early days of weakness and 
struggle our patriotic little town took the name of " Bruns- 
wick," and it named its fort " Fort George." It honored thus 
in its simple loyalty what was in fact, alas ! that I must say it 
here to-day, the meanest dynasty that ever held the fate of 
England in its hands. Because the occasion brings us face to 
face with the reign of the Georges, I may speak of our own 
civil service with encouragement. Think of the state of the 
civil service of England then, a condition of things which 
makes our civil service of to-day seem clean. Think of Sir 
Robert Walpole, at the time when our little town was begin- 
ning its corporate existence, as the representative of the 
government, meeting members of Parliament with open bribes, 
and rarely if ever finding reason to doubt the truth of his 
often repeated saying, " Every one of these men has his price." 
We are told of bribery to-day, but it comes, let us be thankful 
for that, not from the government. Think of the time when 
in England, without such open bribes, not even the most needed 



38 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



treaty could be ratified. Think of George the Third, late even 
in the eighteenth century, managing the affairs of a nation 
according to the methods of a ward politician. Remember, 
too, that this political corruption did not stand alone. Church 
livings, even bishoprics were given on the same principles of 
personal or partisan service. All this went, at least so far as 
the upper stratum of society is concerned, with social corrup- 
tion. Our political spoils system is a partial relapse into a 
single phase of a condition of things, such as I have described. 
Think what time and the resolute endeavor of earnest men 
have accomplished in England within the life-time of our town, 
and take courage ; but remember that time alone, without such 
endeavor, can do nothing. 

The great gain on an occasion like the present, is that we 
stand for the moment in the focus of two great lights. We 
see ourselves in the light of the past and in that of the future. 
We judge the past, and we know as we judge the past, so the 
future will judge us. We stand thus in the presence of an 
ideal partially fulfilled. It is the ideal of a democracy in which, 
while the minority have their share in the direction of affairs, 
they shall not govern the majority either by their violence or 
their cunning. We stand in the presence of a yet grander 
ideal, still more dimly seen ; that of a humanity in which is felt 
the power of common life ; in which man, as man, is felt to have 
immeasurable worth. It is this for which the arts of our 
civilization are preparing. It is this which our democracy 
symbolizes. It is this which, so far as the worldly life is 
concerned, is the meaning of Christianity. It is the presence 
of this ideal and its partial fulfillment, which justifies our joy 
in the triumph of civilization over barbarism. It is this which 
condemns us ; but it is this which fills our hearts with hope 
and courage. That the future will judge us, is of itself a 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



39 



prophecy of good ; for it means that the ideal will one day be 
more clearly seen, and have more power over the hearts and 
lives of men. 

When we turn from that which the town in its short history 
has seen, and that larger life in which in the future it will have 
its part, to that which has been seen within the town, a differ- 
ent lesson comes to us. Whatever the world may have in store, 
whatever gain in the appliances of life and in life itself, there 
is one thing in which the future can never outdo the past. 
Heroism is always the same. The world will never have heroes 
nobler than those which have already lived. Patience and 
courage and self-forgetful energy are alike precious under all 
forms and circumstances of life. To-day we lift the heroism 
of the fathers of our town up from the obscurity in which their 
lives were passed, and honor it. Let it be an inspiration to our 
own lives ; so that when the great light of the future is turned 
back upon our memories, as we turn back the light of the present 
upon theirs, we, in the peace and comfort of our homes, shall 
be seen to be no unworthy successors of those whose strong 
arms and brave hearts conquered for us the wilderness. 



POEM. 



Pkofessor Hekry Lelaxd Chapmax. 



I. 

In the sweet tones of music breathes a spell 

Of twofold power to touch the human heart, — 
A spell that Nature weaves, no less than Art, 

Herself an instrument wherein cloth dwell 

The harmony of sounds that sink and swell 
In varying chords; now suited to impart 
Gladness to life, and now to soothe its smart ; — 

A harmony more rich than speech can tell. 

A spell of twofold power, that leads the soul, 
Thro' pleasant melodies, into the land 
Of memory; or with notes more full and free 

Unveils the realm of hope : so is the whole 
Of life by subtle concord sweetly spanned, 
The years that have been, and the years to be. 

ii. 

The river, flowing onward to the sea, 
Sings to itself, and sings to all that hear, 
A pleasant song, alike at work or play ; 

Its foamy fingers sweep, with careless skill, 
The wheel revolving 'neath the busy mill, 
And straight it seems a harp of tuneful key, 
Whose liquid melody beguiles the ear 
That listens to it on a summer's day. 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 41 

This is its work; and when its work is done 

It hurries forth to greet again the sun, 

And gleams and sparkles on its winsome way, 

In all the rapture of unfettered play. 

It ripples o'er the stones, and, like a brook, 

Trills a clear strain of wanton merriment ; 
It rests a moment in some eddying nook, 

Crooning an air of undisturbed content ; 
With deep-toned mirth it leaps the threatening fall, 
Hearing below the rich melodious call 
Of the full current, in the tranquil pride 
With which it moves to meet the ocean tide. 

But in this changing music of its moods 

We catch the whispered accents of the woods 

Bending to parley with the siren stream 

That flashes by them like some transient dream ; 

We hear the singing birds that dip their bills 

In the cool current ; 'mong the quiet hills 

We hear the woodman's axe, in echo ring 

Thro' the still air, and listen to the spring 

Whose tiny voice begins the haunting theme 

That runs through all the music of the stream ; — 

A theme that still invites our feet to roam 

Back with the river to its early home, 

And 'gainst its current, in our thought, to glide 

Thro' meadow, hamlet, wood, and mountain-side, 

To the clear rill, whose unforgotten note 

Seems, like a wraith of Melody, to float 

Adown the current, sweetly to compel 

The thoughts of men to yield to memory's spell. 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



III. 

A solemn cadence thrills the patient shore 

Beaten by tides, and by the waves that break 
Upon it, while their low-voiced echoes wake 

Desire to know the secret evermore 

Held by the sea, yet uttered o'er and o'er ; — 
A secret which the wayward clouds partake, 
Drifting across the upper deeps that make 

No answer to the ocean's ceaseless roar. 

It is the secret of the vast Unseen, 

Stretching away beyond our feeble ken ; 
And in the music of the waves we hear 

Hints of far shores, and shrines, and islands green, 
Where Hope the enchantress dwells, and beckon 
men 

To seek the riches of her unknown sphere. 

IV. 

O town beloved ! Mistress of our hearts ! 
Proud in the beauty that thine age imparts, 
Proud in the reverence that thy children pay 
To thee, in memory of thy natal day, 
Bending a look of recognition sweet 
On us who gather at thy gracious feet, — 
What shall we offer at thy festal shrine ? 
What but the love that is already thine, 
The loyalty renewed that feeds its fires 
With the fond memories which this day inspires, 
The wishes, that our tongues but faintly frame, 
For added lustre to thine honored name? 
These be our offerings ; nor wilt thou refuse 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



43 



To take them at our hands, while thou dost muse, 
With eyes down-dropt, submissive to the spell, 
In which the past and future seem to dwell, 
The spell of music falling on thine ears, 
Where thou dost sit amid thy thronging years. 

For through the chorus of thy children's praise 
Steals thy fair river's reminiscent song, 

Leading thy thoughts, by sad and sunny ways, 
Back to remembered scenes now vanished long; 

The present fades before thy dreaming eyes, 

And the bright visions of the past arise. 

The pioneers, who tilled thy virgin soil, 
Salute thee, pausing in their patient toil; 
The captains, from their homeward-speeding ships 
Shout a glad greeting through their bearded lips; 
Light-hearted youths, in ever-changing throngs, 
Repeat thy name in academic songs ; 
And stalwart soldiers bid thee brave adieu 
As they go forth to join the boys in blue. 
Kindles thine eye with unaccustomed light 
As these fair visions pass before thy sight, 
Summoned by that soft spell the river throws 
About thee, as its constant current flows 
Close by thy side, and chants a low refrain 
That calls the vanished centuries back again. 

While thus thou sittest, wrapped in grateful thought 
Of days departed long, yet not forgot, 
The. ocean, with its never-resting tide 
And rhythmic passion, presses to thy side, 
Breaks at thy feet, and thrills thy listening ear 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 

Like the deep voice of some prophetic seer. 
And lo ! thine eyes are lifted, and alight 
With hopes that rise upon thy quickened sight, 
Gilding with light the untold years that wait 
To add new beauties to thy queenly state. 

For like the babe that rode to Merlin's feet 

On a wild wave, the realm's great king to be, 

Floats a fair promise to thy wave-washed seat, 

Borne on the diapason of the sea ; — 

A promise of the grace, yet unrevealed, 

That coming years shall to thy presence yield ; 

Of gifts more precious from the sunlit skies 

Than those which charm thy backward-turning eyes 

Of wealth, love, learning, and the happy pride 

Of her whose sons in loyal faith abide. 

So listening to the river and the sea, 
Whose voices blend in sweetest harmony 
Of hope and memory, thou dost seem to greet 
Thine elder sons and future, as they meet 
And join with us, who throng about thee now 
To crown with living love thy radiant brow. 



THE PROCESSION. 



At the close of the exercises in the church, the procession, which 
had been forming by sections in different parts of the town, was 
brought into line and began its march. The route pursued was down 
Main Street to Mason Street, thence to Federal Street and up Fed- 
eral to Bath Street, through Bath and Potter Streets to Union Street, 
through Lincoln Street to Main Street, up Main Street to the rail- 
road crossing at the head of the Mall, down Park Row and Main 
Street to Bank Street, thence to Federal Street, where the proces- 
sion was dismissed. The length of the procession was estimated at 
three-quarters of a mile and it is said to have taken half an hour in 
passing any given point. It was formed in seven divisions as 
follows : 

FIRST DIVISION. 

Detachment of Police. 
Chief Marshal, Charles E. Townsend. 
E. W. Johnson, Wm. M. Pennell, Geo. D. Parks, Aids. 
Military Band of Portland. 
Chamberlain Guards of Brunswick — Lieut. W. O. Peterson, Commanding. 
Vincent Mountfort Post, G. A. R. — J. A. Fisher, Commanding. 
In Carriages. — Governor and Staff, Orator and Poet, President of the Day, 
Invited Guests, Town Officers, General Committee. 
Brunswick Wheel Club. 

SECOND DIVISION. 

F. H. Wilson, Marshal; L. J. Bodge, O. W. Turner, E. A. Thompson, Aids. 
Brunswick Cadet Band. 
In Carriages. — Faculty of Bowdoin College and Maine Medical School. 
Students of Bowdoin College. 

THIRD DIVISION. 

E. C. Day, Marshal; Edward Toothaker, Aid. 
Boys' Band. 
School Committee. 
Teachers and Pupils of the Public Schools. 

FOURTH DIVISION. 

Fire Department. 
St. John's French Band. 
S. B. Dunning, Chief Engineer. 
T. S. Melcher, C. S. Stimpson, A. R. Nickerson, E. H. Woodside, Assistants. 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



Old Fire Engine of 1838. 
Kennebec, No. 1 — J. H. French, Foreman. 
Niagara, No. 3— E. Nickerson, Foreman. 
General Bates Company of Lisbon Falls. 
Pejepscot Hook and Ladder Company — L. Litchfield, Foreman. 

FIFTH DIVISION. 

I. H. Danforth, Marshal; Geo. Knight, Frank Hicks, Aids. 
Drum and Fife Corps. 
Floats representing the Early History of Brunswick : 
Pejepscot Canoe Club. 
Capture of Molly Phinney. 
The Spinning-Wheel. 
The Loom. 
The Minute-Man. 
The Old Chaise. 
Parson Dunlap. 
The Stocks. 

SIXTH AND SEVENTH DIVISIONS. 

F. H. Adams, Marshal. 
Charles S. Frazier, Woodbury Purinton, H. Mallett, Aids. 
Agricultural Display and Trade Exhibits : 
A. T. Campbell. 
Harvey Stetson. 
Dennison Manufacturing Company. 
Bowdoin Paper Company. 
John D. Nagle. 
F. H. Wilson. 
J. Furbish. 
Silas Goddard & Son. 
Howland & Colton. 
J. W. & O. R. Pennell. 

F. C. Webb. 
Whitehouse Brothers. 
Topsham Flour Mills. 

W. O. Peterson. 

L. D. Snow. 
Robert Jordan. 
Adams & Ridley. 
Spear & Whitmore. 
J. & A. M. Murray. 
C. E. Townsend. 
E. Hacker & Son. 
Androscoggin Pulp Company. 
A. W. Townsend. 
S. R. Jackson. 
E. S. Crawford. 
C. H. Colby. 

G. W. Crane. 
F. M. Stetson. 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



47 



Some of the features of the procession deserve more than a mere 
mention, and fairly call for full description. The Pejepscot Canoe 
Club exhibited the advance made in boat-building by presenting 
together an Indian birch-bark canoe and a modern one of the latest 
fashion. The capture of Molly Phinney was set forth in a highly 
dramatic manner by three men disguised as Indians, and a girl 
whom they captured and released again many times as the procession 
moved on. The spinning-wheel and loom were kept in operation by 
competent and active women. The minute-man was shown at his 
plough armed with an old musket of 1775 actually used at old Fort 
George. An old chaise bore its history inscribed upon it as follows : 
"Built by Orrin Head, Exeter, N. H., 1819." Parson Dunlap was 
presented riding on a saddle which belonged to old Parson Eaton of 
Harpswell with a Bible of 1737 and a hymn-book of 1820. The 
stocks were constructed in accurate imitation of the article in use in 
colonial days. An old chaise dating from 1785 was driven by a 
man clad in a suit of clothes of 1789. The public schools received 
great and well-deserved applause for their part in the procession. 
The floats were numerous and well arranged and added greatly to 
the bright and animating appearance of the whole. The trade 
exhibits were numerous and elaborate and showed very favorably 
the variety and the vigor of the business life of the place. They 
formed the largest element in the procession, and reflected great 
credit on the energy and public spirit of the men who presented 
them. 

The procession was dismissed about 2 o'clock, amid general 
expressions of satisfaction. The success of it was very largely due 
to the untiring efforts of Chief Marshal Charles E. Townsend who 
spared no cost of time or pains in carrying out the programme. It 
was estimated that at this time there were from 10,000 to 12,000 
people in the town, including the citizens themselves. 



THE DINNER. 



After the procession was dismissed, a dinner was given at the 
Town Hall at which four hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen 
were seated. At the long table in front of the stage sat Dr. Alfred 
Mitchell, President of the Day ; on his right the Governor and Staff 
and Members of Congress ; on his left the Orator and Poet and 
other invited guests. A blessing was asked by Rev. L. S. Crosley. 
The dinner was furnished by George E. Woodbury & Son, and the 
following bill of fare was offered : 

Boned Turkey. 
Larded Prairie Chicken. 
Cucumbers. Sliced Tomatoes. 

Philadelphia Capon. French Fried Potatoes. 

Sliced Ham. Sliced Tongue. 

Radishes. Lettuce. 
Lobster Salad. Chicken Salad. 

Philadelphia Ice-Cream. 

ASSORTED SWEETS. 

Angel Cake. Chocolate Cake. Pound Cake. 

Walnut Cake. Marble Cake. 

Lady Fingers. Kisses. Macaroons. 

Strawberries and Cream. 
Vienna Coffee. 

FRUIT. 

Oranges. Bananas. Grapes. 

At 3 o'clock, Doctor Mitchell called the company to order, and 
gave the first regular toast of the day : "The Town of Brunswick," 
to which Mr. Frank E. Roberts, Chairman of the Board of Select- 
men, responded as follows : 

REMARKS OF FRANK E. ROBERTS, CHAIRMAN OF 
SELECTMEN. 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — I regret to say that I 
am one of those unfortunates who were born without the limits of 
Brunswick. But soon after attaining the age of manhood and 
learning of the many good qualities of Brunswick and its inhabitants, 
I immediately removed here and have been a Brunswicker for the 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



49 



last thirteen years. Since living here I have done what I could to 
remedy nay misfortune. I have done that thing which is next best 
to being born here. I married a Brunswick girl. Therefore I can 
truly say that the better half of me was born in Brunswick. I have 
been recently studying genealogy, and I find that my maternal 
great-grandmother was a Bruuswick woman. I am pleased to say 
that there is some Bruuswick blood flowing through my veins to-day. 
For this reason, and by virtue of my office, it is, perhaps, fitting 
that I respond for the old town to-day. 

Mr. President, I am glad and proud to speak for Bruuswick at 
any and all times. We have listened to-day to the grand history of 
the old town, recouuted to us in eloquent words by one of her dis- 
tinguished sons. He has told us of the trials and privations of the 
early settlers. He has told us of their success under great difficul- 
ties. He has told how, unaided and alone, the men of those times 
defended their homes and their families from the torch and the 
scalping knife of the savage. We have read in the history of 
Brunswick of the great number of men sent from here into other 
parts of the state in the Indian Wars. We have read of the large 
number of men who went from here into the Revolutionary Army 
and fought for the independence of their country. I have seen it 
recently stated, on no less authority than that of Geueral Joshua 
L. Chamberlain, that at the close of the War of the Revolution, 
while General Washington was reviewing the troops, he rode up and 
down the lines, and, halting before the 3d Division of Massachusetts 
troops, exclaimed "God bless Massachusetts." That division 
before which he halted was composed of men from York and Cum- 
berland Counties. Some of them were Brunswick men and they 
have many descendants in town to-da}^. We have read of the many 
men who served from Brunswick in the War of 1812. We know 
that in the War of the Rebellion Brunswick sent to the front nearly 
half a regiment of men. We know, too, that over eighty of that 
number never returned. Their bones are in the Sunny South to-day, 
but their names are inscribed in enduring marble on yonder tablet. 
What is the lesson of all this ? We learn that true courage and love 
of country have ever been prominent traits in the character of the 
men of Brunswick. 

Brunswick was incorporated as the eleventh town in the Province 
of Maine. At the time of the last census, in 1880, it enjoyed the 
distinction of being the largest and wealthiest town in the state. It 

D 



50 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



was not only the largest town in the state, but was also larger than 
four of the cities and richer than five. Of the fifteen cities in the state 
at that time, and the hundreds of towns, it was eleventh in popula- 
tion and tenth in wealth. There is but little reason to doubt that it 
retains the same relative rank to-day, for it contains within its borders 
over 6,000 inhabitants, and has a valuation of nearly $3,500,000. 

To show you, sous and daughters of Brunswick, who have 
returned here to-da}?, that we, as a community, are alive to the 
necessities and conveniences of modern civilized life, I will say that 
in the year 1883 we built this splendid Town Building, a building 
erected not only for the convenience of the officers of the town- and 
its inhabitants, but also as a memorial to those Brunswick heroes of 
the War of the Rebellion who died that their country might live. In 
1885 there was built here, by the Pejepscot Water Company, a 
complete system of water-works, and we have to-day upon our 
streets sixty hydrants for fire purposes, and in our homes the purest 
of water. In 1887 there was established here an electric light 
plant, and at night our streets are lighted by electricity. All this 
has been done within six years, and before two years more have 
elapsed, we confidently expect to see the electric cars running up and 
down our streets, and before the end of the decade, we are going to 
have in Brunswick a complete system of sewers. We, the men of 
Brunswick of to-day, believe that great changes are to take place 
here within a short period. We believe, among these changes, that 
the little cluster of summer residences at Mare Point is but the 
advance guard of many others that are to line our beautiful shores. 
We believe that the magnificent water-power here at the Falls, one 
of the very best in New England, will soon be utilized for manu- 
facturing purposes to its fullest extent. We believe that the river 
will be dammed at Simpson's Rips, and that large power, by the 
aid of electricity, be brought to our very doors and also fully 
utilized. We believe that Brunswick is soon to be what it was 
intended to be by nature, the most beautiful, as well as one of the 
largest and most prosperous cities in the grand old State of Maine. 

The second regular toast was the. " State of Maine," to which 
Governor Edwin C. Burleigh responded as follows : 

REMARKS OF GOVERNOR BURLEIGH. 
Most sincerely I congratulate the citizens of Brunswick that they 
are able to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth year of its incor- 
poration under such auspicious circumstances, and that they have 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



51 



reason to look upon the history of their beautiful town with so much 
interest and pride. 

The important relation which Brunswick has long sustained in 
the state is well understood by the public. The character of her 
citizens and public men for many years has been to her distinguished 
credit throughout New England and in other sections of the country. 

The large beneficial influence of Bowdoin College to Maine in 
rearing so many of her sons for the professions and in maintaining 
the standing of our popular institutions of education proves its 
inestimable value, not only to Brunswick, but to the entire state. I 
may be allowed to express my regret that it was not permitted me 
to share the discipline and stimulating advantages of this institution, 
which has been the nursery and classic home of so many distinguished 
literary and public men, but I have given my earnest appreciation 
of its great importance in that I have sent to be taught by its honored 
professors those in whom I have reason to cherish the dearest regard 
of blood and affection. 

But you expect me, Mr. President, to say a word in response 
directly to the toast " The State of Maine." As a business man, 
having had occasion to know in past years considerable of the 
natural resources of the state, I am happy to express the opinion 
that it is a good state in which to be born and in which to live. Of 
the large agricultural resources of Maine, yet only partially devel- 
oped, I need not remark. They are well known, though not 
sufficiently appreciated by our own people. Recent opportunities of 
seeing different sections of Maine have largely strengthened my 
estimate of her resources for manufacturing and of her beautiful 
sites and opportunities for summer residences of the thousands from 
the great cities of other states. Reviewing what we have and what 
we are likely to possess in the probable course of events, neither we 
nor those who are to come after us will be likely to have occasion 
to regret being citizens of Maine. 

Congressman Dingley was called upon to answer to the toast 
"The United States," and after a few introductory sentences, 
spoke as follows : 

REMARKS OF HON. NELSON DINGLEY, JR. 

I was thinking why it was that I should be set apart to respond 
to the sentiment, "The United States," and asked myself how it 
happened that the United States should be called upon to pay 



52 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



obeisance to Brunswick here to-day, but when the distinguished 
gentleman who set forth the glories of the town at the opening of the 
entertainment, remarked that Brunswick was older than the United 
States, I thought I had the explanation ; it is the daughter come 
home to the mother, for Brunswick is older than the government of 
the United States. And we have great regard and great respect for 
her age. That reminds me that when I got into the carriage to-day, 
I heard two boys discussing what all this noise was about. One of 
them said, "Joe, what are they all doing here to-day ?" "Why, 
Jim," responded the other boy, " don't you know that Brunswick is 
one hundred and fifty years old to-day ; and you are only ten years? " 
That shows the spirit that is running in the veins even of the ten- 
year-old boys of Brunswick to-day. Several years ago it was my 
good fortune to make a trip throughout the various countries of 
Europe. One bright morning I found myself in a Swiss town. 
Hearing shouts going up as I rose in the morning, I inquired of a 
by-stander as I went down stairs : "What is going on ? " "Why," 
said he, " we are celebrating the six hundredth anniversary of our 
city to-day." Now, six hundred } T ears in a European town with all 
its boasts of antiquity, is nothing compared with a one hundred and 
fifty-year-old town in the United States, is it? Has not more been 
accomplished here in the one hundred and fifty years in which many 
of our towns have existed as incorporated municipalities, than in the 
six hundred years of many venerable cities of Europe? The truth 
is that one hundred and fifty years with us means a great deal more 
that one hundred and fifty, or even two hundred years of Europe. 
You remember the poet well says: "Better fifty }^ars of Europe 
than a cycle of Cathay." But better fifty years of a municipality 
in the United States than a cycle in some parts of Europe. 

And now, my friends, what connection is there between this 
municipality, this town of Brunswick and the United States? Why 
it seems to me that there is the connection that is always to be found 
between the parent and the child. It is to the town system of 
government that we owe this government of the United States. 
If we had not had the town to start with, if our people had not been 
trained to govern themselves by their town meetings scattered 
throughout New England, we never could have had a government of 
the United States. I know the suggestion was made a few moments 
ago that Brunswick was the largest town in Maine and that in the 
near future she would become a city. Now I want to make this 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



53 



suggestion : do not hurry to the city government until you are 
actually compelled to. Why not? Because there is that in the 
government of a town which can never be gained from that of a city. 
Every individual may come together to discuss and listen to the 
words of wisdom of each other, receiving advice, giving advice. 
There is an education which cannot possibly exist in any other form 
of municipal government. Though the day of municipal govern- 
ment will undoubtedly come, yet put that day off as far as possible. 
But, my friends, I did not come here to-day to make a speech. You 
have with you the distinguished representative of this district who 
came here expecting to make a speech. And now, thanking you 
for the invitation to be present, and hoping that at no distant day 
we may sit about your board and congratulate you upon your 200th 
anniversary, I will give way to the gentleman who has come prepared 
to address you. 

After the remarks of Congressman Dingley, the President called 
upon the Hon. Thomas B. Reed to respond for ' k All Creation." Mr. 
Reed said : 

REMARKS OF HON. THOMAS B. REED. 

I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen, to be obliged to commence what 
I have to say by an apology. I am sorry to be obliged to say to you 
that my presence here to-day was one of the reasons why Governor 
Dingley was not born in Brunswick. I remember, some little time 
ago, sitting in the rain for some fifteen minutes while the Governor 
paid a beautiful, touching, and eloquent tribute to the town of his 
birth — the town of Unity, in Waldo County. I found, to my aston- 
ishment, a few months ago, that the Governor was also born in the 
town of Durham, in Androscoggin County. And nothing but my 
presence here, I say again, has prevented you from having, or rather 
sharing, the honor of its being his birthplace. I felt, therefore, that 
I ought to be apologetic, for in history it will be a great honor to 
any town in this state to have even shared the reputation of being 
the birthplace of Governor Dingley. 

I had prepared myself somewhat for personal reminiscences in 
regard to Brunswick by getting up at half past four this morning, 
but to my astonishment I found that, contrary to what was the case 
when I was in college, it is light at that early hour. My recollection 
of the getting-up time in Brunswick is that it was always dark. But 
we seem to have changed that now, and I am unable, therefore, to 
go into the reminiscent vein. 



5-4 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 

I am only going to trouble you with some general observations 
which I regret to state I have not had the opportunity of preparing. 
But it seemed to me. as I was listening to the oration of Professor 
Everett to-day, that even if you leave out of account the record of 
the rocks to which he referred, and take into account only written 
history, that one hundred and fifty years, or even two hundred and 
fifty years, is a small period of time to take much account of. If 
it were antiquity alone that we were celebrating to-day, it would not 
be worth either the trouble or the expense, but these celebrations 
take deeper root upon the human heart than the mere lapse of years. 
They touch our souls because they are instinct not with years, but 
with humanity. 

I suppose that it is the dream of every educated American who 
has not already done so, to travel beyond the seas in lands of 
historic glory. "We do not desire to go there simply because years 
have rolled over the mountains and the valleys and the great struct- 
ures of architecture. Our mountains are as old. our buildings are 
as flue, and yet they have not to us that attraction which they have 
abroad. With our mountains are not connected, as witli the Alps, 
the passage of Hannibal and the triumphal march of Napoleon. 
Our capitol at Washington can take its place in grandeur and in 
beauty alongside any palaces of the past, but it is not yet thronging 
with associations of great men. of brave men. and of noble women. 
That is what gives the attraction to the human heart in those build- 
ings of the historic countries. What makes "Westminster Abbey 
beloved of us all? It is not the grandeur of the stones piled upon 
each other to the top of the pinnacle and the summit of the towers ; 
it is not the beautiful tracery of the windows nor the rich light of 
the stained glass. It is because it is the home of England's noblest' 
dead. "Wherever you have the touch of humanity, wherever you 
connect scenes with the deeds and doings of men who have lived 
and fought and suffered as we are doing, the chain is beyond the 
power of breaking to the human being. Hence it is that these cele- 
brations have such a hold upon our hearts. It brings before us the 
deeds and doings of those who have made life easier for us by their 
sacrifice in the past. It is no discredit for a town to be a mere spot 
upon the surface of the earth, when it is lighted up by some deed of 
human heroism or human self-denial, and it adds to our strength as 
a people and as a nation to fill our minds with the associations of 
noble deeds connected with our towns and with all our localities. 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



55 



Therefore it is that I hail with pleasure any such scene as this. 
I believe that the great deeds of the past are incitations to us 
forever for noble deeds in the future, and the history of Brunswick 
is full of the same. These celebrations also bring up to us the 
associations which make life pleasant and happy. There is to me no 
more pleasant thought than that I belong to the list of those who 
were graduated at the noble college on the hill. It is not so great 
as many a university. It is not so famous as many a college ; but 
for the production of men of sense, of culture and of learning, it 
has almost no equal, and I venture to say, no superior. 

One sentence more and I am through. It ought to be the effort 
of every citizen of Brunswick to do his best that the generation 
which makes the next celebration will be able to speak as well of 
you as we who talk to-day can of those who are dead and buried 
now. 

Dr. Mitchell then called upon President Hyde to respond for 
'•Bowdoin College." President Hyde spoke substantially as fol- 
lows : 

REMARKS OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM DeWITT HYDE. 

One hundred and one years ago, the justices of the peace and the 
Congregational ministers of Cumberland County petitioned the Gen- 
eral Court of Massachusetts to establish a college in the District of 
Maine ; and, out of many rivals for the hand of the dowerless insti- 
tution, Brunswick, with the munificent offer of some two hundred 
acres of sand-plain valued at two shillings per acre, was the suc- 
cessful suitor. It has been fortunate for the college that it was 
placed here, beside your broad and quiet highway from the river to 
the sea, and surrounded by the warm hospitality of your pleasant 
Brunswick homes. 

Freely the college has received the encouragement, the sympathy, 
the support of Brunswick's best citizens in service upon the Boards 
of Government, in the office of Treasurer, and in the less conspic- 
uous, but to an institution depending so largely on public sympathy, 
equally important lines of personal loyalty and friendly influence in 
its behalf. Freely the college has given back an educational impulse 
and a moral enthusiasm to the town. Many of the sons of Bruns- 
wick have received a collegiate education who were unable to go to 
a distance to secure it ; and a goodly number of the fair daughters 
of the town, though debarred from studying within its walls, yet 



56 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



have become daughters-in-law of the college and have it to thank 
for loving husbands and happy homes. 

The Prof essors have been from the first loyal and devoted citizens 
of the town. What nobler type of the true citizen was ever given 
to a town than Professor William Smyth ! Faithful to the college, 
our Memorial Hall is the monument of his enthusiasm and energy. 
Faithful to the church, the spacious edifice in which we were assem- 
bled this morning bears witness to his faith and zeal. Faithful to 
the town, our school system is the fruit of his untiring perseverance, 
and our high school is the crown of the victory he won after a long 
and bitter fight against selfish prejudice and obstinate ignorance. 
He. with a colored man from " Harris Hill." cast the first two votes 
for abolition that were cast in town. His house was the headquar- 
ters of anti-slavery lecturers and agitators, and the Brunswick 
station of the underground railway was at his home. Fidelity to 
his public duties carried him so far in this direction that the timid 
conservatives, who constituted the governing Boards of the College, 
appointed a committee whose verbal instructions were, u to investi- 
gate the state of instruction in Bowdoin College." but whose animus 
and object was to discover that Professor Smyth was engaging in 
political agitation to the neglect of his college work. In some way 
or other the scheme got wind, and the students, with that love of 
fair play which is characteristic of them, resolved that the grand old 
man should not go out by an} T such back-door as that. So they 
studied their mathematics as they never had studied before, and I 
fear never have studied since, and when the committee came to 
examine the class they found to their confusion and dismay that 
apparently the state of mathematical instruction in Bowdoin College 
was all that could be desired. Such in greater or less degree has 
been the character of the Professors which Bowdoin College has 
contributed to the citizenship of Brunswick. 

Though the Presidents have been of all sorts, from the dreamy 
scholar and mystic divine to the dashing General and brilliant Gov- 
ernor, yet there is one essential function they always have fulfilled. 
They are excellent scapegoats. For however far any of you may stray 
from the path of virtue, you may always console yourselves with the 
assurance that as long as there is a College President in town he 
will be accused of doing or permitting to be done something in- 
finitely worse. Only last Memorial Day, when some of the lawyers 
and business men of the town got together and played a game of 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



57 



ball, I steadfastly refused repeated invitations to join the game, and 
did not even go to the grounds and witness it ; yet next morning while 
these gentlemen saw nothing in the morning papers to spoil their 
breakfast, I was held up to the people of the state as the chief 
desecrator of the day, because the college nine had played a game 
of ball. 

College and town have dwelt together for more than fourscore 
years ; and in spite of " Yagger wars " and friendly lawsuits the bond 
between the two has been growing firmer with the increasing years. 
And among the many causes for congratulation which this anni- 
versary brings to mind, one of the foremost is the charter of Bow- 
doin College, granted June 24, 1794, which took the sterile sands of 
yonder hill where only the pine and the blueberry could flourish, and 
planted there an institution which has sent forth more than two 
thousand noble men for the service of the State and the heal- 
ing of the Nation, for the glory of G-od and the blessing of 
mankind. 

The next speaker was William M. Sargent, Esq., of Portland, who 
had prepared for the occasion the following paper on Thomas Pur- 
chase from which he read some extracts : 

THOMAS PURCHASE BY WILLIAM M. SARGENT. 

Stemmata quid faciunt? — " Of what use are genealogies?" satiri- 
cally queried old Juvenal ; and at his time and before his audience 
he was doubtless justified for his taunting gibe at a very scholarly 
and recondite pursuit, for his fellow-Romans were not over-addicted 
to decorous centennial celebrations, and could have found but little 
satisfaction in tracing back through hundreds of years of obscurity 
to a mythical origin and a ferine foster-mother. 

To make no mention on this auspicious occasion of the worthy 
old gentleman who was your first settler would be leaving out from 
the play the principal dramatis persona ; and so upon the invitation 
and assurance of your committee that such additional facts as have 
not before found their way into print concerning Thomas Purchase, 
the founder of your settlement here, would be especially grateful 
and acceptable to Brunswick citizens, at this their sesqui-centennial, 
this paper is now brought forward. 

At first it seemed but supererogatory to attempt to add aught to 
the comprehensive sketch of his life, times, and character so admir- 
ably presented by the Messrs. Wheeler in their comprehensive 



58 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



history of your town, 1 and which must be so well known to yon 
that a re-description of his life and deeds would be a trite and well- 
worn theme ; but so fruitful are our only partially explored fields of 
research that be a given tract never so thoroughly harvested, careful 
search and comparison may bring to light overlooked gleanings that 
will round out and embellish the garnered sheaves. And your 
critical indulgence is craved for this, a hastily prepared paper from 
notes confessedly incomplete, produced rather in the hope of 
stimulating further research than as a satisfactory offering to your 
laudable curiosity, or a complete tribute to the man whose memory 
we to-day in part commemorate. 

But upon the assurance that you will now for the first time learn 
Purchase's last wife's name ; the names of all his five children, the 
names of the persons each one married, a part if not the whole of 
his grandchildren ; his relationship to his partner George Way ; 
others of his very respectable relatives ; the probable disposition of 
the Way and Purchase patent, or at least its whereabouts, as late as 
A.D. 1737; and an extract that will further aid in locating the 
exact place of his abode — upon the fulfillment of this assurance, it 
is hoped that this audience, unlike old Juvenal's, will admit that in 
this clay and generation the genealogist's is not a wholly thankless 
avocation. 

In attempting to straighten out the relationships of his family, 
confusion has been worse confounded by the facts that there wer& 
three Thomas Purchases ; that two of them married women whose 
Chris'tian names were Elizabeth ; that there were three Elizabeth 
Purchases, two of whom married men each named John Blany ; and 
that two of Purchase's sons married sisters surnamed Williams. 
From such a tangled snarl, small wonder that writers have so far 
failed to deduce straight lines. Ours, then, the pleasing task to 
unravel this knotted skein. 

The first difficulty is easily resolved by a reference to the " York 
Deeds," published by the liberality of our State. The conveyance 
to Richard Wharton in 1683 by Mrs. Elizabeth Blany, "the late 
relict and administratrix of Thomas Purchase of Pejepscott," is also 
signed by " Elizabeth Purchase," the relict of Thomas Purchase, 
Junior, deceased. 2 There is a plain enough distinction, and 

1 History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, by George A. Wheeler,. 
M.D., and Henry W. Wheeler. Boston, 1878. 
2York Deeds. IV., 16 and 17. 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



59 



the Salem Records 3 also show that 11 Thomas Purchase and 
Elizabeth Williams were married 3d-10mo '79," or a year and a half 
after the death of the elder man, which will be hereafter shown to 
have occurred in May, 1678. This Elizabeth Williams is the woman 
who has been so often erroneously but persistently assigned to the elder 
Thomas. Thomas Purchase's first wife, or at any rate his first Amer- 
ican wife, Mary Gove, died in Boston, November 7, 1655. 4 It is 
certain that no children by her survived their father, for when he died 
at Lynn, May 1, 1678, he left by his will, 5 dated May 2, 1677, 
probated June 4, 1678, one-third of his estate to his wife, Elizabeth, 
and the other two-thirds to his five children. Of these, his son 
Thomas, in his petition for administration, refusing the executor- 
ship to which he had been appointed by his father, states that he 
was a young man. He was probably just at maturity, and certainly 
unmarried, which occurred eighteen months later, as shown above. 

The widow, Elizabeth Purchase, having married in November, 
1679, John Blauy of Lynn, 6 in 1683 conducted the negotiations 
that led to the transfer of Purchase's moiety of Brunswick and 
adjacent tracts to Richard Wharton 7 for a consideration of £20 
paid down, £130 more to be paid upon production of a copy of the 
Patent, 8 and several lots of land reserved. This she did as sur- 
viving administratrix, her son Thomas having never been heard 
from, and judicially determined to have been lost at sea. 9 In 
the conveyance is this significant reservation, viz. : " One hundred 
and fifty pounds . . . and seaven lotts and shares of land 
reserved and secured by articles signed by the sd Wharton bearing 
date with these Presents." This conveyance is signed by those of 
Purchase's children who were by law capable of contracting — two in 
number, Jane, the wife of Oliver Ellkines, and Elizabeth, the wife 
of John Blany, Junior, by the legal representative of a third, 
Elizabeth, the widow of Thomas Purchase, Junior, and by the mother 
in behalf of the other two who were minors, but not naming them. 

Among the files of our Maine Historical Society there is 
preserved a fragment, half obliterated by accident and the corroding 

3 Essex Inst. III., 15. 

4 Boston Com. Rep. IX., 52. 

5 Salem Probate Office. II., 348. 

6 Lynn Records, Essex Inst. V., 173. 

7 York Deeds. IV., 16 and 17, supra. ■ 

8 Pejepscot Records, 143 and foil. 

9 Saiem Probate Office. III., 121. 



60 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



tooth of time, of the counterpart 8 of these w ' articles signed by 

the sd Wharton," and by the greatest good fortune enough of it 

still remains to supply the names of the other two children ; they 

were Abraham Purchase, named therein, and Sarah Purchase, named 

in the part that is missing, as the following receipt for a payment on 

account of her share, by her mother, conclusively proves : 

Boston, June 26, 1687. 

Rec'd then Forty shillings in money of R. Wharton in behalf of my daughter 

Sarah Purchase within named. I say Rec'd „ „ 

p Eliza. E Blany 

her mark. 

Having thus enumerated all the five children mentioned by 
Thomas Purchase in his will, attention is immediately arrested by 
an apparent discrepancy in the wording of the fifth paragraph of 
said "articles," viz. : " for each of ye seven shares before engaged 
to be laid out to the said Eliza & her six children." The only 
inference that can be drawn from that is that this woman had 
another child either before or since her marriage with Purchase. 
Now this fragment begins thus : " Pike Shall of the said Lands and 
each of them have a share of one hundred acres laid Out in home 
Lotts & out Lots in Proportion with others when a Plantation shall 
Be Layd out," and is signed among others by one Samuel Pike; 
and this Samuel Pike had also brought in an account of fifty pounds 
against the estate for the diet of Mr. Purchase for seven months and 
the diet of the four younger children. He was a brave and exem- 
plary young man, who afterwards was an Ensign in the Indian wars 
from 1687, 10 and it was he, and not his father, who gave the first 
warning of the Indian outbreak of 1676, and was one of the deter- 
mined band who held out until succor arrived in the fort they threw 
up on the inner slope of Cushing's Island under the Rev. George 
Burroughs. 11 And he it is who discloses who his mother was before 
marrying Purchase ; in a petition about 1688 he claimed that his 
father, Richard Pike, deceased, had been possessed of a tract of 
land on the west side of Mussel Cove. 

So Mrs. Elizabeth Purchase, the second wife of Thomas Purchase 
and his surviving widow, is abundantly proven to have been three 
times married : first to Richard Pike, second to Thomas Purchase, 
and third to John Blany, Senior. 

Thomas Purchase, Junior, married Elizabeth Williams, December 



10 Willis' History of Portland, 268. 

11 Sargent's Cushing's Island, 27, 29, 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



61 



3, 1679, and hud a son Thomas, born January 29, 1680, and of him 
the following is the last record : 

"25 Nov., 1684, Thomas Purchase having been on a voyage to sea 3 years 
since with Mr. Habbakkuk Turner & no one of ye men on ye ship yet heard 
of Administration granted to Elizabeth his widow." 

The appraisal of his estate embracing 100 acres of land at the 
eastward was returned June 30, 1685. 9 

The recital in the deed by this third Thomas Purchase to Samuel 
Waldo, that his father, Thomas, was the eldest son of Thomas 
Purchase of Pejepscot, leaves room for, and in so far corroborates 
the existence of the second son, Abraham, discovered above. 12 

Abraham Purchase married Ruth, daughter of John Williams of 
Salem, and had children: Ruth, born June 10, 1702; Benjamin, 
born March 2, 1706. 13 

Elizabeth Purchase, the younger, married John Blany, Junior, 
and had seven children. 24 

Sarah Purchase married Gamaliel Phippen, and had one son and 
seven daughters. 25 

Though you have no Purchases now in your midst, it is more 
than probable that through the ramifications of the above numerous 
families the blood of your first settler has been transmitted to the 
veins of some among you. 

Purchase was of extremely respectable and even gentle extrac- 
tion ; he stated himself that he had been a servant to King Charles I. 
about the beginning of his reign, 14 and it is a well known fact that 
none but gentlemen were chosen for positions so near royalty. This 
statement of his is elsewhere supported. 15 He names in his will 5 and 
calls "cousins," i.e. nephews, Oliver Purchase, an active and con- 
spicuous man of Lynn where he was honored with various offices, 
and Edward Allyn, a Boston merchant of good standing ; he was a 
blood relative of the Rev. Robert Jordan, our early Episcopal 
clergyman, as John Winter writes, who must have informed himself 
of the antecedents and connections of his future son-in-law; he was 
a brother-in-law to George Way of Dorchester, England, his 
partner in the Patent, as is disclosed by the latter's will ; 16 and the 



12 York Registry of Deeds, 16, 162. 

13 Savage. 

14 Francis Neale's deposition, Pejepscot Records, 495. 

15 Mrs. Eunice Wharton's letter, Pejepscot Records, 338. 
16 Gen. Reg. XLIIL, 152. 



62 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



partial pedigree of the Rev. Samuel Purchas, of u Pilgrimage " fame, 17 
shows our Thomas was probably a nephew or cousin to that cele- 
brated divine. This pedigree also shows he may have had a double 
relationship to his nephew Oliver by blood or by marriage, since 
Mary (Perkins) Purchase, the second wife of Oliver, was also a 
Purchase on her graud-maternal side. 

This extract may aid in locating "the fair stone house" of 
Purchase "below the falls:" 18 Henry Boad writing from Wells, 
September 29, 1684, to his cousin, G-overnor John Winthrop, com- 
plains of Cleeve's encroachment and claims that Wells fell within 
his forty miles along the sea-coast ; which Boad thought a second 
survey might disprove " if he begin to take his measure according to 
his patent roch. Is at Sakadohec river the southwest syd of yt ; 
but he began at Mr. Purchase's house at the river called Mengipscott 
river, and set one (Booth) to measure that hath neither art nor skill 
. . . . but was bribed to take in John Wadloe who dwelt at the 
middle of our town." 19 Now remembering that Wells was about 
eight miles broad and allowing for this encroachment, you get 
approximately the distance of Purchase's house from the old 
river of Sagadahoc — or finding the exact location of Wadloe's house 
in Wells by tracing down the titles and measuring along the coast 
you would come to the exact site of Purchase's house. 

Much doubt has at times been expressed about the existence of 
the patent from the council for New England, but the evidence of 
its existence is overwhelming, and permits of no doubt or cavil. 
John Cousins had seen it. 20 Richard Callicott deposed that 
Purchase intended to go to England to get a new copy of it in 1677, 
after his own had been destroyed by fire in his house ; 20 all of Pur- 
chase's neighbors knew more or less about it ; 20 and now more new 
evidence can be adduced ; G-eorge Way devises his half to his son 
Eleazer in his will quoted above. 16 This Eleazer Way found that 
certain agreements made by his father and Purchase in 1633, 
operated as an equitable bar to the execution he had obtained against 
his uncle and so released him, distinctly citing the Patent. 21 Why 
then did not Purchase place so important a Patent upon record? and 



17 Id. XXXVIII., 319. 
18 Pejepscot Records, 493. 
WMass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 2 S. II., 157. 
20 Pejepscot Records, 493 and foil. 
2i Gen. Reg. XLII., 149. 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



(33 



the statement by Edward Rishworth, the Recorder of the Province, 
"that he could find no record yt giveth any person or persons any 
Title thereunto," 20 has been relied upon as disproving the existence of 
any such Patent. The reason why it could not be found there by 
him, or by subsequent searchers was, because though properly 
recorded, it was not done in Yorkshire, but among the vanished 
records, of which but scanty bits have ever been discovered, of the 
Rigby government, the evanescent General Assembly of the Province 
of Ligonia, which dragged through a precarious and intermittent 
existence from 1643 to 1658, and of which Brunswick then formed 
a component part. Francis Neale, the second Recorder of that 
Province deposes to this in the most unmistakable manner : "Mr. 
Purchase gave the Depon't a coppy of the Commission by which he 
held his place, which, that Depon't being then Recorder, put on 
record." 20 These records had disappeared, doubtless destroyed 
from interested motives, before the time of Purchase's fire, or else 
he could have gotten a certified copy without going to England. 

It is now certain that Wharton in his negotiations for this prop- 
erty had insisted that a copy of the Patent should be produced, and 
it was to obtain this that the younger Purchase sailed for England ; 
hearing nothing from him and being impatient to consummate the 
bargain, Wharton paid part of the purchase money down and 
executed the above " articles," the fourth paragraph of which reads : 
" Fourthly, John Blany and Elizabeth Blan} T covenant and promise 
in case no Inrollment or record of said Patent can be found nor 
other Confirmation be obtained in right of said Purchase & Way, 
for the premises, and on said Wharton reconveying he shall be 
discharged from the said one hundred and thirty pounds." 8 Between 
the time of the Purchase- Wharton deed and that of the deed of the 
Indian Sagamores, 22 Wharton either went or sent to England and 
obtained the full copy of the Patent from which the description in the 
latter deed must have been taken so full and precise in its terms as 
compared with the earlier one, for which at the time of its execution 
material was not at hand, except for very general terms. Another 
confirmatory fact is that we find him in 1687 making payments on 
account of his purchase satisfied with the "confirmation he had 
obtained in right of said Purchase and Way for said Patent." 8 

Having gotten possession of the original Patent Wharton changed 
its depositary, placing it with intimate friends as is shown by 



22York Deeds- IV., 14 and 15. 



64 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS. 



extracts from a letter from Mrs. Eunice Wharton, his son's widow, 
dated London, November 1, 1737 : "I can make them a valid Title 
& none Elce can do it, which is likewise recorded and pattented 
here in oald England the oridginal Pattent from the Council of 
Plimoth is in the hands of the Duke of Hambleton ; the Exempli- 
fication which Mr. Purchase had was believed to be burnt with his 
Hous ; but his title was sufficiently proved : Mr. Winthrop have a 
copie of it, if you can get his Wife to shew it you." 23 

This last clause seems likely enough because of Winthrop's care 
to protect the Bay title under the grant of 1639, and because of the 
secretiveness of interested Massachusetts claimants of the Kennebec 
tract, who would hardly divulge all they had knowledge of about a 
rival claim that they hoped some day to absorb. 

Thus have we traced your worthy founder's family, patiently 
elaborating details that may seem trivial to some of you, but which 
will serve the historiographer of the future, who to cope with 
communities, to generalize upon generations, and to popularize 
peoples to posterity must first study personal peculiarities and 
family transactions and traditions. 

Now as we bid good-bye to Thomas Purchase, leaving estimates 
of his character, praises of his virtues and censures of his faults to 
the enthusiastic imagery of rising generations, we reflect : 

" No epitaph can make 
The just man famed ; 
The good are praised 
TVhen they are only named." 

Professor Everett was then called upon to respond to the toast 
"Town and College," which led him to give the audience many 
bright and merry reminiscences, of which we can give but a frag- 
ment: * 

REMARKS OF PROFESSOR CHARLES C. EVERETT. 

The relations between the college and town, as I first remember 
them, were hardly creditable. There have been the French and 
Indian wars and the war of 1812 ; but historians have not given suf- 
ficient attention to the "Yagger war." I remember once, when a 
small boy, my father was called upon one evening to assist President 
Woods in quelling a 64 Yagger war," which were at that time rather 



23 Pejepscot Records, 338. 

24 Essex Inst. XVI., 90. 

25Phippen Family and Gen. Reg. XXV., 88. 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



65 



dangerous and decidedly unpleasant. President Woods at one time 
reprimanded a student for taking part in such a scrimmage, and for 
throwing rotten eggs. The student is reported to have disclaimed 
the epithet " rotten " and to have said the eggs were good ones. 
But the President said that he could answer for it that one egg at 
least was not good, as it came within dangerous proximity to his 
nose. 

Professor Everett then related several amusing anecdotes and 
closed by alluding to the present pleasant relations between town 
and college, which he hoped might always continue. 

The next toast was " The Maine Medical School " to which Dr. 
Israel T. Dana responded as follows : 

REMARKS OF DR. ISRAEL T. DANA. 

Mr. President, — You have asked me to say a few words on this 
interesting memorial occasion, as representing the Medical School of 
Maine. I am most happy to do so. This school, the medical 
department of Bowdoin College, has attained the ripe age of three- 
score years and ten, less one. It was founded in 1820. The dear 
old mother has many sons, and they are all loyal to her. Some of 
them after leaving her, extend their studies in the great medical 
centers at home and abroad, but they never cease to think and speak 
of her with filial respect and affection. " Her children arise up and 
call her blessed." 

The school was founded by Professor Parker Cleaveland of 
Brunswick, and Dr. Nathan Smith of New Haven. It was fortunate 
in its founders. They were men of rare power and devotion. They 
were at first the only Professors, and each taught in several depart- 
ments of medical science. Indeed their individual " chairs," as 
wittily suggested by Dr. Holmes, in another connection, might more 
appropriately have been termed "settees." The quarters of the 
school at first, in the upper stories of old Massachusetts Hall, were 
cramped and uncomfortable. The tall men would get the end seats, 
and occasionally stand up, with as little noise as possible, and stretch 
first one leg and then the other down the aisle for relief. Traditions 
were handed down of occasional rollicksome and boisterous freaks 
of the "medics" in the early years of the school. I remember 
hearing President Woods say, in an address to the class soon after 
the occupation of the new medical building, "Time was when the 
coming of the medical class was a terror to the community. Now, 

E 



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ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



gentlemen, you are an example to us all." Let me add to the names 
of Cleaveland and Nathan Smith those of Drs. R. D. Mussey, 
Edmund R. Peaslee, B. Fordyce Barker, and William Warren Greene, 
and you have a group of five medical professors than whom it 
would be difficult to name five more distinguished in connection 
with any medical college in the land. 

The Medical School of Maine has rendered good service to the 
commonwealth. Seventy years ago there were comparatively few 
within its borders, who had taken the degree of M.D. Men would 
"read medicine" with some neighboring practitioner and then take 
up practice for themselves. The establishment of the school marked 
a new era in medical education here. The standard was raised. 
Not only were better educated doctors furnished to the villages and 
small towns, but an examination of the records shows that for the 
last two generations, a very large percentage of the ablest and most 
distinguished physicians and surgeons of the larger towns and cities 
of Maine have been graduates of this school. 

The Medical School of Maine deserves well of the State. Its 
past record is assured and most creditable. No effort must be 
spared to make its future yet more abundantly useful and honorable. 

At the close of Dr. Dana's remarks the President called upon 
the audience to rise and join in singing a hymn. The following 
hymn was then sung to the tune of Duke Street : 

O God, beneath thy guiding hand, 

Our exiled fathers ci'ossed the sea; 
And when they trod the wintry strand 

With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee. 

Thou heard'st, well pleased, the song, the prayer — 

Thy blessing came; and still its power 
Shall onward through all ages bear 

The memory of that holy hour. 

Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God, 

Came with these exiles o'er the waves, 
And where their pilgrim feet have trod 

The God they trusted guards their graves. 

And here Thy name, O God of love, 

Their children's children shall adore, 
Till these eternal hills remove 

And spring adorns the earth no more. 

The President introduced Hon. Charles A. Boutelle as a hero of 
the Albemarle fight, a distinguished journalist and prominent leader 
in Congress. Mr. Boutelle received an enthusiastic reception. 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



67 



REMARKS OF HON. CHARLES A. BOUTELLE. 

Mr. President, Neighbors, and Friends, — I might say, in the 
borrowed language of days gone by, I came not here to talk, but 
I am afraid that John Furbish and Charlie Townsend would say 
I was trenching too much on the speech of the past. I have come 
here simply and solely to rejoice with you on this occasion. While 
I have not the honor to claim Brunswick as the place of my nativity 
or of my present residence, I cannot forget that for nearly twenty 
years this village represented everything included in the word home. 

Great changes have taken place here, not only in one hundred 
and fifty years, but in the short time since I have known the town. 
And if you should wish to present a picture of the contrast, I do 
not think you could do better than bring that old town hall that I 
knew and put it up here in a corner of this. 

I was not a graduate of Bowdoin College, much as I should be 
pleased could I point to that honor, but I was not without a course 
of study in this old town. Well I remember the school kept by 
Aunt Susy Owen down here in the old yellow house on the corner of 
Main and O'Brien Streets. And I remember how the task was 
carried on by her daughter. Then I remember well Susan Springer, 
Amanda Knight, the sisters Hinckley, and Miss Owen, whom I see 
here to-day. I admire the spirit and work of those teachers who 
whipped into semblance of order the unterrified young cubs of that 
day. There were Leonard Townsend, Charles Francis Adams, and 
Jonathan Adams, whom I am glad to have as a fellow-citizen in 
Bangor. I might also speak of the contrast of the school-houses 
between that day and this, than which nothing could show better the 
progress of this town. 

When I lived here the town was famed for its great ship-building 
industry, and the skill of Brunswick workmen was known wherever 
our flag could be seen on the waters of the civilized globe. From 
these yards have been sent out as magnificent specimens of naval 
architecture as ever cleaved the waters of old ocean. From them 
have been set afloat by Pennells and Schofields and Humphreys 
nearly seven hundred and fifty craft — ships, barks, schooners, and 
brigs — that have borne the influence of our civilization to the utter- 
most parts of the earth. I missed to-day the enormous piles of box 
shooks which used to be piled here by thousands. This has been 
revolutionized by different processes of manufacturing sugar. But 
the splendid procession to-day shows how you have added other and 



68 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



more varied industries to your town. The building of new resi- 
dences and streets all bespeaks the present prosperity and future 
progress of the beautiful town. May your advances exceed even 
those made in the past, is the wish of one who on this lovely plain, 
surrounded by these beautiful hills, spent his early and happiest 
days. I can close in no more fitting a manner than by telling you 
that one of the most beautiful expressions of Longfellow, " The 
Building of the Ship," found its inspiration from a Brunswick ship- 
yard. I close by saying of our common state and our magnificent 
country as he saw it : 

" Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 

" Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee, — are all with thee." 

President Mitchell then called upon Rev. Edward C. Guild to 
respond for "The Clergymen of Brunswick." Mr. Guild said: 

REMARKS OF REV. E. C. GUILD. 
I have no reminiscences to offer of past times, for I have 
been but a short time a resident of Brunswick. But it may 
interest you to know how Brunswick strikes a new-comer. My 
first impression was that Brunswick people were rather hard to get 
at. I found it difficult to make acquaintances. I found it rather 
hard to get inside of people's doors. But the next thing I found out 
was that once inside you met a very hearty welcome. When you 
had once got in you never wanted to get out again. And when you 
had once found people out you found them always the same. I have 
been much struck with the stability of good things here in Bruns- 
wick. When a man .has won a warm place in the hearts of the 
Brunswick people they are ready to stand by him. The memory of 
the good men who have lived here is so fresh and warm — so vital a 
part of the life of the community — that it is difficult for me to 
realize that I have not personally known them. The names of such 
men as Professor Smyth and Professor Packard, Dr. Lincoln, Dr. 
Adams, and Dr. Woods are such household words wherever I go, 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



69 



that I can hardly believe I have never seen their faces nor heard 
their voices. I have been struck, too, with the difficulty of getting 
people to support a new movement or enter into a novel project. 
But here, too, the same quality of stability is manifested ; when 
they are once interested and engaged they do not let it drop till 
it is well and thoroughly accomplished. 

In behalf of the clergy I desire to say, with glad and grateful 
feeling, that the day of Christian unity and good-will has dawned, 
never, I trust, to set ; the heartiest fellowship and mutual regard 
exist to-day, and every one of the Christian societies here is ready 
to rejoice at the prosperity of every other society. 

Weston Thompson, Esq., who was to have spoken for the lawyers 
of Brunswick, was unfortunately absent. President Mitchell then 
called upon Dr. George A. Wheeler, of Castine, to respond for 
" The Physicians of Brunswick." Dr. Wheeler spoke as follows : 

REMARKS OF DR. GEORGE A. WHEELER. 

The after-dinner pill I am called upon to administer may not 
prove very palatable, but I hope may be beneficial. I will sugar- 
coat it all I can. In speaking a few words in behalf of the former 
physicians of this town I feel all the time that the duty ought to 
fall upon a resident. The fact that I am not a citizen enables me, 
however, to include the physicians of to-day in my general remarks. 

This town has been specially fortunate in the character and 
standing of its physicians. Charlatans have and doubtless will 
come here as elsewhere, but they don't find the atmosphere here an 
agreeable one. From the earliest period of the town's settlement, 
its physicians have been among its leading men and eminent either 
for their professional attainments, the civil or political positions they 
have filled, or for their literary and social qualifications. 

The earliest here of whom we have authentic record, Dr. 
William Spear, participated in the last Indian and in the Revolution- 
ary War and later served on the Board of Selectmen. Dr. Samuel 
Duncan — whose saddle-bags may be seen in the room below — was 
a Representative to the General Court of Massachusetts. Dr. 
Ebenezer Goss, though addicted to rather too frequeut potations, — 
so much so that on one occasion when in his barn-yard he thought 
the road had been fenced in front and behind him — was, neverthe- 
less, esteemed as a physician and held in high repute as a citizen. 
He had a large practice and was chosen a Representative of the 



70 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



town to the General Court. Dr. Jonathan Page was a man of mark. 
He was a Senator in the Massachusetts Legislature, a Representa- 
tive to the Convention called for the formation of the new State of 
Maine, and a Senator to the Legislature of Maine. He was one of 
the original members of the Maine Medical Association, a member 
of the Medical Faculty of Bowdoin College and of the Board of 
Overseers of the College. Drs. Isaac and John D. Lincoln are yet 
too well remembered to need any extended mention at this time. 
They both were members of the Medical Faculty and of the Board 
of Overseers of the College, and the son was on the Board of your 
Superintending School Committee. They were both ardent sup- 
porters of every project they deemed essential to the welfare of the 
town, and it is in no small degree due to their efforts that Brunswick 
can boast to-day of being one of the most beautiful towns of our 
state. 

When I consider the conditions of practice in this place fifty 
years and more ago — the comparatively sparse population, the 
extremely long drives that the doctors had to take, and the fact that 
they had to prepare their own medicines and carry quite a drug store 
around with them, even here in the village, — I am truly astonished 
to find that they had, not the ability only, but the time to take the 
positions, not only in their profession, but in society, which they 
undoubtedly did. 

I would gladly mention the names of others, perhaps equally 
deserving, but the time will not allow. I will only say that it is very 
evident that this town of Brunswick still holds the medical profession 
in high esteem. Could it be more markedly shown than in the choice 
you have made of your presiding officer for the day? 

REMARKS OF MR. HOWARD OWEN. 
Mr. Howard Owen of Augusta, general editor of the Maine 
Farmer, a native of Brunswick, responded to the toast " Memories 
of My Childhood Days." Of his entertaining speech we are able 
to give only a summary. The burden of the speeches of many who 
had preceded him, was that Bowdoin College was the institution of 
the town. He should judge from remarks casually dropped that 
there was such an institution in Brunswick as Bowdoin College, If 
his memory served him right, the boys, natives of the town, were 
entitled to some credit for the progress made. He saw at this board 
some of the original members of the Juvenile Temperance Watch- 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWLCK 



71 



man Club, that flourished here forty years ago, having for its grand 
motto. ••Temperance aud Morality." Here are John Furbish, Henry 
W. Wheeler, Charles A. Boutelle, Fessenden I. Day. Solon Lufkin, 
George F. Marriner, and others, whose lives had been successfully 
shaped by the moral principles inculcated at the altar of the club. 
He was glad to know that the silk banner given by the ladies, on 
which our motto was inscribed, was still preserved. Out from the 
club grew the Juvenile Temperance Watchman paper, which he had 
the honor to publish and edit, the first youth's temperance paper ever 
published in the state of Maine. He wondered if any present could 
repeat with him a portion of the beautiful ritual of the order : "You 
have seen the vine, how beautifully it adorns the cottage, how win- 
ningly it spreads its arms aud clings about it. It is beautiful ; but 
if you will draw back the vine, you will see that the cottage is grad- 
ually going to decay beneath its embrace ; so intemperance often 
arrays itself in the garb of innocence and beauty, but before you 
are aware of it, it destroys your best principles." He spoke of one 
conspicuous member of the club, Fred Stowe, son of Harriet Beecher 
Stowe ; and from personal experience would testify that while his 
mother's writings thrilled the world, she was the poorest cook he 
ever met ; her pies and cakes were absolutely indigestible. A 
liberal contributor to the Watchman was C. A. Boutelle, now of the 
Bangor W/iig. over the signature of " Ramrod," and those who have 
preserved the files of the paper, will find his articles stamped with 
the same mental vigor, pluck, moral tone, and earnestness that 
characterize the leaders of the Wlikj. 

Mr. Owen next spoke of the influence of the country boys in the 
town, and the prejudice which early existed against them. He 
scarcely ever came over Powder House Hill but he was set upon and 
intimidated by a border ruffian who used to make his life miserable ; 
but one day he secured the services of Marsh Merryman, a Rocky 
Hill stalwart, and that was the last time he was ever assaulted by 
the Powder House Hill ruffian. He denounced those dudes of the 
village or city who stand upon the corners of the streets and make 
fun of the awkward appearance and ill-fitting clothes of the country 
boy, who, nine times out of ten, came out the better in the race of 
life. He recalled the midnight raids of the "turkey and turnip 
club," and of a shrill voice sounding out one night, the harsh notes 
of "There they go with the geese. George, run, hog, or die." In 
their mad haste a brook was forded, loose garments were thrown 



72 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



aside, hats were lost, and one member of the party had the satisfac- 
tion the next Sunday of seeing George West wear his two-dollar-and- 
half hat to church. He alluded to Squire Greenleaf. whose home 
was three miles in the country, and whose office was in the village, 
but who steadily ignored all means of transportation but those which 
Nature provided every man. Most people regarded it as against the 
law to get married, unless Squire Greenleaf performed the ceremony. 
Smykes was a well-known character in Brunswick, who found single 
blessedness a miserable condition, and his heart went out in tender 
emotions to one Olive Brown, an inhabitant of Shad Island. They 
were married by Squire Greenleaf and a village poet thus notices 
the event : 

" Said Smykes looked round, on fairy isle 

He found the blooming rose; 
And now with various tints of love, 

His heaving bosom glows. 
As fastest colors often change 

By dyers of renown, 
So Smykes changed his by Greenleaf s aid. 

And now sports Olive Brown." 

Mr. Owen indulged in many other pleasant reminiscences which 
excited great applause. 

In closing he referred to Brunswick as it was forty years ago, 
and as it now is, with its magnificent Town Hall, fine residences, 
elegant stores, live local newspaper, and all the appliances of a city. 
With the continuation of this progress and prosperity, who can tell 
the future of this goodly town, when the little boys and girls who 
formed so beautiful a feature in the procession that day shall sit in 
this place to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the town. 

REMARKS OF MR. SUMNER L. HOLBROOK. 
Mr. President, — I was born in Brunswick and have always lived 
here. For nearly half a century the town has had to bear this 
incumbrance. I occupy the same farm that has been connected with 
the family for a hundred years. Annually around the old hearth- 
stone the different members of the family meet to renew associations. 
The old red cradle that rocked us all is still kept as a sacred relic of 
the past. I had not the honor nor the privilege of graduating from 
Bowdoin College. My Alma JIater was the old dilapidated school- 
house that set upon that rocky hill-side ; from this I graduated at a 
tender age. It brings no blush to my cheek to tell you that the 
aged lady that has been operating the old hand loom in the court- 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



73 



room below to-day, is no one else than my respected mother, who 
xi half a century ago used to weave that same kind of cloth for 
from three to five cents a yard to get a little money to help keep the 
family machinery in motion and the wolf from the door. 

It has been my business for the last few years, as a member of 
the State Board of Agriculture, to go into different counties of the 
state and talk with the farmers in regard to their occupation. While 
so doing I have had occasion to speak on all of the various ques- 
tions that have come up for discussion during the last decade ; I 
have been called upon to speak in regard to our great stock interests ; 
I have had occasion to speak in regard to the renovation of soils, 
but have dwelt more particularly upon the cultivation of the differ- 
ent crops that we grow on our New England farms. Your literary 
committee have extended to me this mark of courtesy and ask me 
to-day to speak in regard to another crop, — a crop which I am not 
much accustomed to talk about, a crop which was transplanted here, 
•a crop which it would appear was particularly adapted to the soil and 
the soil to the crop, if we may be allowed to judge by the rich ripe 
fruit that from time to time has been harvested home, — I mean the 
intellectual crop, the grandest and noblest crop that ever grew on 
any soil, the same kind of a crop that we grow all over the state of 
Maine, that crop which is known, loved, honored, and respected, 
wherever the English language is spoken. And I have this to say, 
that if you come up here to-day to this feast of tabernacles, to this 
jubilee after the gathering in of a hundred and fifty harvests, proud 
of your record, proud of Brunswick because of the many things that 
we have to be proud of, proud of Brunswick, not because it is a high, 
haughty, dictatorial city, but proud because it is a lovely village of 
the plain, proud of Brunswick because, like the rest of New England, 
the town is bespangled with school-houses and churches, proud of 
Brunswick because of the high moral atmosphere which pervades 
the whole town, is it not largely due to the noble ancestry of yeo- 
manry who came to Brunswick ? Not for pillage or plunder or con- 
quest or honor, but to make themselves a home, did they come with 
their families bringing their implements of husbandry, rude though 
they were, and settled along the banks of the New Meadows River, 
along the banks of the Androscoggin, along the shores of Casco 
Bay, and formed the nucleus out of which has grown refined, 
literary, Christian Brunswick of to-day. 

The farmers of Brunswick of to-day, count them, and the 



74 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



number corresponds to that heroic band that stood in the mountain 
pass and defied the Persian hosts ; count them again and the number 
corresponds to the little army that followed that invincible leader 
down to that historic river and drank the water without breaking 
ranks. There are three hundred of them, with more than 20,000 
acres of land under improvement. If you wish to know more about 
them, go to their homes, neat and attractive; if you wish to know 
more about them, enter those homes, and you will find refinement 
and culture and domestic happiness. 

Mr. President, let me say this in conclusion. Our occupation is. 
a quiet one, as quiet as the brooks that wind across and through the 
meadows that we cultivate. Our mission is a peaceful one ; the 
battle-ax which our fathers used in defense of their homes and in 
subduing the forests has long since been laid away ; our spears have- 
all been beaten into pruning hooks, and our implements of warfare 
to-day are the plow and the reaper. Our battle field is not like that 
of Shiloh, or those on which the armies of Europe are to-day ripen- 
ing for conflict. Our work is to raise the bread that shall feed the 
hungry, and to see to it that the pitiful cry of " only three grains of 
corn, mother," may never be heard in our land. But we stand with 
a solid front, ready, when we hear the bugle call, when we hear the 
tocsin of alarm, when we hear the slogan pipe, to follow that All 
Conquering Leader who leads the grandest old brigade that ever 
buckled on the armor and went forth to battle. The farmers of 
Brunswick are ready to fight under the true flag, in the great moral 
conflict whose final battle is to be fought here, and whose ultimate 
triumph and crowning victory is to be won on American soil. 

The last speaker was Mr. Isaac Plummer, of Brunswick, 
whom the President introduced as the prophet appointed for the 
occasion. 

EEMARKS OF MR. ISAAC PLUMMER. 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — Life and its surround- 
ings are full of mysteries. Questions are constantly arising in my 
mind relating to the future which are unanswered and unanswerable. 
Not the least of these has been the question, Why was I selected to 
speak on the future of Brunswick when so many of my fellow- 
citizens are both eloquent and prophetic? Not being a prophet or 
the son of a prophet, this has been one of the mysteries of life. 
Had this selection been made by my good wife, it would not have- 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



75 



been a mystery, for she often tells me my predictions are as correct 
as are those of a last year's almanac, especially as to the weather. 

It is said that coming events cast their shadows before, conse- 
quently what I may say must be as shadows or predictions. The 
past lives in memory and history. The present only is ours. 
Infinite Wisdom saw fit to suspend a dark curtain between us and 
the future, so far, most certainly, as worldly events are concerned, 
and no human hand has power enough to raise it, and no eye is keen 
enough to see beyond it. Many of our fondest hopes and anticipa- 
tions, like the flowers of the night blooming cereus, send 
forth their sweet fragrance for a brief period, then wither and 
die. How often we exclaim, Had we known thus and so, we would 
have done differently ! Nevertheless, it is our duty to speak, plan, 
and act for the future as though it was ours, and, judging by the 
past, are we not justified in predicting the future ? To-day we are 
assembled in one of the most beautiful towns of which our entire 
country can boast. Within the walls of our various churches we 
predict that generations yet unborn will worship according to the 
dictates of their consciences, with none to molest or make afraid, not 
being fed, as at present, by Fish-er, Haddock, or Herring. For her 
various institutions of learning, in which every good citizen feels a 
just pride, we predict a glorious future. At the head of these stands 
Bowdoin College, and we predict that when her able and honored 
President and Faculty shall cease to labor, others will be forthcoming 
to fill their responsible positions, and that she will in the future, as 
she has in the past, send forth her honored sons, some to battle for 
justice and the right at our nation's capital, and others, by precept 
and example, to educate and Christianize those who are less 
favored than we. We also predict that should an invasion or 
insurrection again occur within our land that Brunswick would not be 
found wanting. Her heroic sons would rush to the rescue, and led 
on by another Chamberlain, would stand shoulder to shoulder, ready 
to fight and die, till victory should perch upon her banners. Our 
Medical College, although covetous hands have tried to remove her 
from our borders, still remains, and we predict will long remain upon 
Brunswick soil, and annually equip and send forth her scores of 
M.D's. to either kill or cure suffering humanity. Her manufacturing 
and industrial interests, we predict, are but in their infancy. Down, 
or rather up, in the unknown future, we anticipate that every foot of 
her majestic water-power will be harnessed to machinery, giving 



76 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



employment to thousands of honest hands. Last but not least, we 
wish to speak of her rural districts. The farmers, God bless them ; 
by the toil of their honest hands, our needs and wants are supplied. 
Within our borders, broad acres of rich and fertile soil abounds, 
and we predict that in no far distant day our farmers' sons will see 
that it is for their interest to remain upon the farm and pursue a 
calling of which none need feel ashamed. 

Finally, are we not safe in predicting, not a mushroom growth, 
most certainly we would not desire it, but a steady, healthy, upward, 
and onward career for our noble town ? New enterprises are being 
considered, some of which are nearing maturity. In no far distant 
day we expect to see the railway car driven by electricity upon our 
streets and varied and remunerative enterprises springing up within 
our borders. In every community there are some to be found who 
cry, Halt ! Go slow, boys, carefully weigh the matter. They are 
like a good maiden lady whom I well knew when a mere lad. Long 
ere the railroad was built east of Portland, she was visiting in 
Kennebunk, and never having seen the cars, she went out by the 
roadside to see an incoming train. As it approached she became 
tremendously excited, and with that curiosity which none but that 
good class possess, she jumped and shouted to the engineer : " Stop 
your horse ! Stop your horse ! " " But," said she, " the horse did 
not stop." So we predict, my friends, that the train of progress 
will not stop despite the shouts and cries of the alarmists. Fellow- 
citizens, soon all of us who are here to-day, will have finished our 
labors and gone to our eternal home. Yet Brunswick will survive 
and all her varied industries and institutions will be cared for by 
those who are to follow, and we shall not be missed. Let us strive 
to commit to them a goodly heritage, and it may not be impossible 
that when another centennial celebration shall occur in Brunswick 
you and I may be unseen and unheard guests. 

Owing to the lateness of the hour, the following toasts which 
had been arranged were necessarily omitted: " The First Parish," 
to be responded to by Mr. John Furbish ; " Our Schools," by Mr. 
Albert G. Tenney ; " The Merchants of Brunswick," by Mr. Ira P. 
Booker; "The Early Proprietors," by Hon. Charles J. Gilman. 

In the afternoon a game of base-ball was played on the Delta 
between the Presumpscots of Cumberland Mills and the Bowdoins, 
which attracted a large concourse of people. The score was : Pre- 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 



77 



surnpscots, 11 ; Bowdoins, 10. At sunset a national salute was fired, 
the second platoon having been entertained at dinner in the armory 
by Captain Despeaux. 

At eight o'clock a reception was held at the Town Hall, at which 
the selectmen and the general committee of the town with their 
wives received the Governor and Mrs. Burleigh with the members of 
the Governor's Staff and the other invited guests of the town and 
the citizens generally. Chandler's Orchestra and the Bowdoin Glee 
Club furnished music for the occasion. 

At nine o'clock there was an exhibition of fire-works at the north 
end of the Mall. 

From 10 to 12 the reception at the Town Hall was enlivened by 
dancing, and thus closed the festivities of the day. 



APPENDIX. 



Anno Regni G E O R G I ),.Secund?, Regis, Duodecimo 



AN ACT 

Paft'J- by /A* Great and General Court or Ajfembly of His MajeJI/s Provlnca 
of the Maftachufetts-Bay i* New-England, begun and held at Bofton, 
on Wedpefday tbt Thirty-firfl Day of May i 7 ? 8, And continued) bf 
Frorogatiom unto Wednefday tbt z<$tb Day of November following. 



An K& fot ere&itig a Tovmftiip m tke Couac^-of Tori 
by the Name of Brunfoick 

IJ/H ERF AS there j; <* competent Number of Inhabitants- already fettled upon a 
Trait of Land lying' within the- County of York, hitherto called and known ky 
the Name of Brunfwick, containing iht Quantity of about fix Miles fqnare> and 
ing convenient far q, Toy/n$uf y and tubtreas [aid Inhabitants have humbly fettt&Aid 
tbit flourk tba%isi order to) provide a ffjfyble Maintenance for tbe Mi~ni[tet fete fid 
among tbtm.jbejfmajbf ere fled into} a/Fown[hip, and vejied with tBs Powers and 
4ut&or1tio belonging to, tht otier Towns 

Therefore for Encouragement -of faid Settlement 

Be (t estacte&.fcp cjereiletup tfte ^ofcemout, 
Council ant> ifcefniefctttatttes ta General Court 
affembieo, ana tyt SUittioriip of tfje fame, 

^ha^tb^ iaid Tra6t of Land \ ^'oribtcJ$ in a Plat now seturajgd Co this 
^ewP^^pSW S^MJSjBffll^ iS^fe Moiitlrof a Brooff or Rivufee catted 
4ungatn*ng*noci f ruhajng 1 inco MacAo'%% Bay, where it touches upon IvV(£- 
TaimoHtk Line, and front eHe Mouth of faid Brook to run upon a Courle 
North.North- 4 Weft halt Wefterly five Miles into the Wildernefs, leaving a, 
Wedge or S»np of Land between (aid Line and North Yarmouth, and fiomf 1 
thence upon a Courfe North Eaft four Mjfeflto the fecond Falls of Amaf- 
e'oggin alias Androfvggin River, fron> thetfredown faid River. by Fort Gt,rge, 
and. down Merry- Meeting- Bap fo far as Stephen's Carrying-Place, including 
feveral fmall Iflets lying infaid River above faid Carrying-Place, and over 
faid Carrying Place to the Head ot the Creek or River that runs up to the 
other Side of the (aid Carrying Place, thence down (aid Creek or River to 
the Mouth thereof, including art 111 and therein, and from- the Mouth of (aid 
River to run by the Water Side South Wefterly to the South Weft Point of 
a Place called the New Meadows, thence to ftrike Scrofs/ thaf Cove upon a 
Courfe North North-Weft till ic meets . and interfe&s the upper End of 
Merryconeeg Neck, four Rods above the farrows of faid Neck commonlv 
called the Carrying- Klace-, tbenee io run along the Shore to aNeCk of Land 
called Mare-Point, about 3 Mile and a Quarter down faid Neck, thence to 
crofs over faid Mare-Point and Maquoit Bay upon 2 Cowrie No--tt> Weft till 
if "Comes to Fh& Plaee-hrft above mentioned ; tie and henceforth frfal[ he a 
Townfhip, to be called Brunfwick. } and. the Inhabitants thereof fhal^pve 
and enjoy all fuch Immunities, Privileges and Powers as generally Other 
Towns in this Province* have and,do by Law enjoy. 

[ Tbit Ail was Publ'ifh'd, January 27. 1738,9. ] 

BOSTON: 



Printed by 7*6* Drtftr, PrmtertoHUEjcceUcacy the GOVEKNOUR 
and COUNOU 



LETTERS OF REGRET. 



A few of the letters received from those who were unable to 
attend the anniversary exercises are given below : 

FROM HON. WILLIAM P. FRYE, LL.D. 

Rangeley, May 17, 1889. 

Mr. Frank E. Roberts, Chairman of Committee, etc. : 

Dear Sir, — Your invitation to me to be the guest of the town during the 
celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of 
Brunswick, is received. With thanks for your courtesy, I regret to say that I 
have an engagement out of the State for the entire month of June, and cannot 
participate in the enjoyment of the occasion. I regret this the more because 
your beautiful town was my home for four happy, and, I hope, useful years, and 
my memories of it are all pleasant. 

Respectfully, 

William P. Frye. 

FROM GEN. JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN, LL.D. 

New York, June 10, 1889. 

Frank E. Roberts, Esq.: 

My Dear Sir, — I thank you for the courteous invitation, so handsomely 
conveyed, to be present at the services of the celebration of the one hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Brunswick. You will see 
by the enclosed card that my engagements on that day are imperative and will 
prevent me from enjoying, as I certainly otherwise should, the exercises of your 
interesting occasion. With high regard, 

Yours truly, 

Joshua L. Chamberlain. 

FROM PROF. JOT HAM B. SEWALL, A.M. 
Thayer Academy, South Braintree, Mass., May 24, 1889. 
My Dear Professor Johnson: 

I can but gratefully acknowledge the receipt of an invitation to the celebration 
of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town of Brunswick. My long 
residence in Brunswick and the many warm friendships and pleasant acquain- 
tances there made, bind me and mine to the dear old town with bonds of interest 
and affection, which will be broken only with the severance of the thread of life. 
The exercises of the occasion would have an interest for me second to none, but 
engagements here forbid my acceptance. Thanking the committee- for their 
courteous remembrance, I remain 

Sincerely yours, 

J. B. Sewall. 

Prof. Henry Johnson, Secretary of the Committee of Celebration, Brunswick, 
Maine. 



84 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



FROM J. APPLETON MELCHER, A.M. 

San Francisco, June 1, 1889. 
F. E. Roberts, Esq., Chairman of General Committee, Brunswick, Maine: 

Dear Sir, — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of an invitation from 
the General Committee, of which you are chairman, to he present and partici- 
pate in the celebration, on the 13th inst., of the one hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary of the incorporation of the town of Brunswick. It is with deep and 
unfeigned regret that I find matters of a business nature will compel me to forego 
the pleasure I should derive from a visit to the dear old home, a pleasure that 
would be increased, if possible, by participation in the proposed celebration. 

As a native of the town in which the first score of years of my life were 
passed, I have ever cherished an affectionate regard for Brunswick and its inhab- 
itants. It has been said and sung — "There is no place like home," and in my 
wanderings for forty years, even with our delightfully pleasant home in central 
Alabama, in ante-bellum days, and subsequently, in a no less pleasant residence 
in far-distant California, with her incomparable climate, I have found no home 
like that of my earlier life, my own, native Brunswick, to which the words of 
Goldsmith are peculiarly applicable: "Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the 
plain." Brunswick, with its meandering Androscoggin, whose waters of a golden 
hue fall gracefully over the upper and lower dams, passing onward to the sea, via 
Merrymeeting Bay; Brunswick, with its many pleasant driveways, its "ribbon 
roads," its stately elms and its tall pines; Brunswick, with its environs, Oak 
Hill, Rocky Hill, Growstown with its "Elder Lamb's Meeting-House, " Bun- 
gonungonock," Maquoit, Middle Bay, Mere Point, New Meadows, Gatchell's 
Mills, Cook's Corner, Negro Town, and Ham's Hill; Brunswick, with its friendly 
neighbors, Topsham, Harpswell, Bath, Freeport, North Yarmouth, Durham, and 
Bowdoin, known in the days when general musters were in vogue as " Cathance " ; 
Brunswick, as the home of men of sterling worth, who, after devoting the 
strength of their early manhood to a life upon the "ocean wave" have retired 
from their labors to pass the evening of their days at home, as occupants of the 
tastefully-arranged and attractive residences, which have tended so much to 
beautify the village and increase the wealth of the town; Brunswick, as the seat 
of Bowdoin College, which for nearly a century has furnished to the land and 
world men eminently distinguished as scholars, poets, statesmen, jurists, theolo- 
gians, physicians, and, in fact, in all the professions and business pursuits of life, 
and which, under its model President, Rev. William DeWitt Hyde, and his able 
assistants in the Faculty, still continues in the good work; the Medical School 
of Maine, in connection with the College (may it never be removed to Port- 
land or elsewhere, Brunswick being the proper place for the institution under 
the control of the College Boards); Brunswick, with its manufactures, its mer- 
cantile interests, its Board of Trade, its invaluable water-power, as yet but 
partially utilized, affording, when more fully developed, as it should be in the 
near future, the grandest possibilities for the town as well as for the State. 

Above all and beyond all, Brunswick in her men in general, and her matrons 
and maidens in particular— her sons and her daughters, quite a number of whom 
have accepted the advice of the late Hon. Horace Greeley and emigrated to these 
Western shores, finding new homes and filling new stations of usefulness and 
influence with credit to themselves and with honor to their native State and 
town; never forgetting, however, the old New England home from whence they 
came. I will simply add that the Brunswickers who are now resident upon the 
Pacific slope send cordial and fraternal greetings to their former fellow-citizens 



APPENDIX 



85 



at home, who have made arrangements to appropriately celehrato the one hun- 
dred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, assuring them 
that though we may he absent in the hody, we shall he present in the spirit at the 
celebration on June 13th. 

With thanks for the invitation, and sincerely hoping that this " new depart- 
ure " in celebrating the anniversary of the incorporation of Brunswick will be 
eminently successful, proving substantially beneficial to the town and contrib- 
uting to the increased happiness of its citizeus, I remain, 

Very truly yours, 

J. Appleton Melcher. 

FROM REV. EDWARD N. PACKARD, A.M. 

Syracuse, N. Y., June 9, 1889. 
To the Committee of Arrangements, etc., Brunswick: 

Dear Friends, — May I be counted among those who feel a genuine interest in 
the coming celebration of the town settlement and express my regrets at not 
being able to be present to see and hear all the good things ? Although not a native 
I came very near being so and had not my father, Charles, quitted 11 practicing " 
for " preaching," not long before my appearance on this planet, I should have been 
born under the "law" instead of the "gospel," and a citizen of Maine rather 
than of Massachusetts. To make up for this loss, I hastened to show myself as a 
Freshman on the college campus in the autumn of 1858, just before Professor 
Cleaveland went to his reward, and (with an interval of a year) was nine years a 
resident of the town — four as a student and five as an instructor in the college. I 
voted, paid taxes, and was chosen a deacon in Brunswick. Hence I claim a 
title to a share of the celebration. 

Those who have never left the quiet town can hardly understand the strong 
attachment which we feel who once were residents and now are scattered about 
the earth. The chief characters that have figured in the town history since the 
beginning of the century have been familiar household names with me, through 
the long residence of some of our name in the town. I have an impression that, 
whatever may be said of the generation now living, there was a group of very 
strong men at the head of things during the first thirty years of this century. 
Many of them have passed away since my recollection and were old men when I 
came upon the scene. 

These are days of centennials through the land and forgotten history will come 
to light for our interest and instruction. To know the past, even of a local history 
like that of Brunswick, humanizes us and keeps us from absurd confidence in 
ourselves and our times. Improvements in the arts, in the courses of study in the 
schools, increasing elegance in our homes, business enlargement and prosperity 
are chiefly interesting as we find through them a way to better living. We may 
light our streets with electricity and ride at the rate of a mile a minute and speak 
five languages, but if we buy and sell votes, pass temperance laws that we intend 
to break, have our picnics on Sunday so that we make more money on Monday, 
we have very little to boast of over our fathers who wore homespun and rode to 
church on horse-back and drank too much rum. I believe that the former times 
were not better than these and still I believe that only personal character will 
make our times or any times worth living in. With thanks for your courteous 
invitation, I am, 

Yours truly, 

Edward N. Packard. 



86 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



FROM GEORGE T. PACKARD, A.M. 

120 High Street, New Haven, Conn., May 17, 1889. 
Mr. F. E. Roberts, Chairman: 

My Dear Sir, — The invitation to join in the services of the commemoration, 
for which I would thank the committee, emphasizes for me the fact that one 
need not be town-born in order to be attached to the soil and the souls of a com- 
munity. Like a considerable portion of mankind, I am not so fortunate as to be 
Brunswick-born, but from my earliest days I have had abundant reason to call 
the town my home. 

My father's love for the place in which he had lived as a student, and, later, 
as a lawyer, made him eager to tell his children of her people and scenery. Thus 
the ship-yards (then busy), the plains, the woods, the river with its varied voices, 
and the college halls were photographed on my mind. 

On my first visit to Brunswick, in 1855, I received a vivid impression of the 
dignity and effectiveness of the New England town meeting, when I looked on as 
the voters gathered and deliberated in the Town House, which stood in what is 
now my mother's garden. The ceremonial of Commencement in that year, 
furthermore, gave my boyish eyes a view of pomp and circumstance, — not exclud- 
ing the Commencement Dinner in the Commons Hall, whereat water-melon and 
tea were pre-eminent. 

It is thus evident that my early education was not neglected, for I studied 
Brunswick, in what may be called a Kindergarten course. My college life and a 
temporary residence subsequently confirmed my delightful impressions of the 
town, and I am thus fully qualified to enter into the spirit of the commemoration. 

I desire especially to congratulate the committees. They have shown a " zeal 
according to knowledge " in their plans to afford the town an opportunity to 
express adequately her pride of recollection. In particular, I felicitate the com- 
mittee having the matter in charge, with the selection of the orator and poet. 
The gifts and graces of the speakers will insure their hearers against the untoward 
fate of certain communities, on anniversary days, when, listening to a ponderous 
oration and to machine poetry, the citizens have sighed to be with their ances- 
tors, or longed to be their own great-grandchildren. 

I regret that I cannot be present at exercises which have a noble town and an 
honorable and fruitful history as the subject of thought and eulogy. 

Yours sincerely, 

George T. Packard. 
FROM MISS ANNIE E. JOHNSON. 

Bradford Academy, Bradford, Mass., June 11, 1889. 
To the Chairman of the Executive Committee for the Celebration of the One Hun- 
dred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Brunswick : 

When the invitation of your committee reached me, I was grateful to be 
remembered in the festivities of the town which has been a home to me for so 
many years, and wished I might be with you, but the engagements of the closing 
time of the school year prevent me. 

The call has awakened a thousand remembrances of the dear old town, and 
of the friends with whom I walked its streets, when life was fresh and bright. 
Where will yon find a pleasanter home for the spring-time of life, a town which 
stretches into the sea by so many wooded and rock-bound points, and is bordered 
by a river which seeks that sea in such beautiful undulations ? Its picturesque 



APPENDIX 



87 



beauty strikes one anew, each new year, as you see it from Humphrey's Steam- 
mill Point, nestled in green fields, among the pines, through which, here and 
there, the spires point skyward (alas! that the most beautiful one should still be 
lacking), with the river and its peaceful shores in the foreground. Where else on 
earth does one still drink of Paradise Spring? In what place are the blueberries 
finer or more abundant, and where else can one find flowers of such various 
colors and forms, all through the blossoming time of the year, even to the last of 
the summer ? 

What walks were those of the Pedestrian Club, in summer evenings of long 
ago, to the First Church, on whose steps they sat and listened to stories from lips 
which have since charmed larger, but never more delighted audiences! Where do 
they walk to-day? They have all disappeared from those old walks as irrecover- 
ably as the frog pond on which they skated in the winter, and which the botan- 
ists watched in vain through the summer to find the blossom of the Brasenia, 
whose leaves floated on its surface. 

When, fifty years to come, the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of 
the town shall be celebrated, may those who are now rejoicing in their spring- 
time look back upon to-day with as much delight as we, who shall then be 
sleeping under the murmuring pines, now recall the memories of the past. 

Cordially yours, 

Annie E. Johnson. 

FROM REV. GEORGE J. VARNEY. 

No. 45 Pinckney Street, Boston, May 10, 1889. 
To Frank E. Roberts, Esq., Chairman of Anniversary Committee: 

Dear Sir, — Your invitation to participate in the one hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of Brunswick came duly to hand. The card itself is admirable, sug- 
gesting the ancient conditions by its picture of the old fort; while the general 
form and detail of the announcement and invitation convey an impression of entire 
appropriateness and elegance in the plan and conduct of the celebration. 

The occasion appeals very strongly to those natives of the town whose later 
experience of life has been in places more or less remote. Until a few days ago, I 
had hoped to be in Brunswick this week, but find I cannot spare the time. 

There were periods when the locality, whose corporate beginnings you now 
celebrate, had an importance second to none in Maine; and from first to last it has 
been the seat of effective forces in the affairs of the state. It is therefore not only 
a worthy but a most desirable action to revive and perpetuate the memory of 
those events which have been so conveniently gathered into your excellent town 
history, and which the reported collections of your town historical society will 
impressively illustrate. 

I am, Sir, Very truly, / 

Your friend and servant, 

George J. Varney. 

FROM MRS. H. M. ADAMS. 

East Orange, June 11, 1889. 

Mr. Frank E. Roberts, Chairman of Committee: 

Your kind invitation to be present at the interesting festivities in Brunswick 
this week is received. We have hoped that a part, at least, of the family might 
be present, but at last are obliged to give it up. Our associations with Brunswick 



88 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



as our old home are very warm and tender, and our thoughts and best wishes will 
be there, though we are not. 

Gratefully and truly, 

H. M. Adams and Daughters. 

FROM CHARLES W. PACKARD, M.D. 

4A1 Park Avenue, New York, May 17, 1889. 
Frank E. Roberts, Esq., Chairman, etc.: 

My Dear Sir,— I very much regret that it will be impossible for me to be 
present upon the anniversary occasion to which you kindly invite me. It would 
give me great pleasure to unite with you in celebrating the incorporation of my 
native town; but my engagements are such as to compel me to remain in New 
York, and to content myself with bespeaking for the day pleasant skies and all 
other good things. 

Very truly yours, 

Charles W. Packard. 

FROM WILLIAM W. EATON, M.D. 

Danvers, Mass., June 12, 1889. 

Professor Johnson : 

Dear Sir,— Please accept my sincere thanks for the kind invitation to be 
present and participate in the exercises commemorating the one hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the town's incorporation. I am compelled to be absent in 
the body, but be assured I shall be present in spirit, rejoicing with you in the 
welfare and prosperity of the good old town, endeared to me by all the associa- 
tions of youth and early manhood, and to whose schools and college I am 
indebted for the education that has been so large a factor in the success and 
happiness of life. May God bless and prosper the dear old town through all 
coming years. 

Yours truly, 

William W. Eaton. 

Similar letters of regret were received from Prof. Samuel 
Harris, D.D., of New Haven, Coon. ; Prof. Geo. L. Goodale of 
Cambridge, Mass. ; Prof. C. J. Eockwood, Jr., of Princeton, N. J. ; 
Hon. Josiah Crosby of Dexter, Maine ; Dr. C. S. D. Fessenden of 
Louisville, Ky. ; Rev. Henry Farrar of Gilead, Maine ; Geo E. B. 
Jackson, Esq., of Portland, Maine; Mrs. C. F. Dole of Jamaica 
Plain, Mass. ; Mr. O. T. Murray of Sioux Falls, Dak. ; Mr. Solon 
B. Lufkin of South Portland, Maine ; Mr. William F. Stanwood of 
Ellsworth, Maine ; Mr. Charles A. Robbins of New York City ; 
Mr. Edwin Emery of New Bedford, Mass. ; Mr. George Earl Swift 
of Minneapolis, Minn. ; Mr. L. S. Alexander of Bath, Maine ; and 
Mr. Fred O. Conant of Portland, Maine. 



APPENDIX 



89 



GENERAL COMMITTEE 

Frank E. Roberts, 
Charles J. Gilman, 
Albert G. Tenney, 
Lemuel H. Stover, 
Ira P. Booker, 
Henry W. Wheeler, 



OF ARRANGEMENTS. 

John Furbish, 
Henry Johnson, 
Sumner L. Holbrook, 
William M. Pennell, 
Isaac Hacker, 
James W. Curtis. 



SPECIAL COMMITTEES. 



LITERARY EXERCISES. 
F. C. Robinson, Weston Thompson, 

C. H. Smith. 



c. e. tovtnsend, 
Frank Adams, 
W. 0. Peterson, 
F. H. Wilson, 



PROCESSION. 



Chas. H. Nash. 



F. E. Roberts, 
S. L. Holbrook, 
I. H. Danforth, 
E. A. CrayvEORD, 



F. C Webb, 

J. A. Whitmore, 

A. F. Yarney, 



H. W. Wheeler, 



DINNER. 



E. A. Will. 



TABLETS. 



H. L. Chapman. 



H. V. Stackpole, 
Fred Stanwood, 
LleyvEllyn Cobb, 



I. P. Booker, 



J. W. Curtis, 
T. H. Riley, 
B. L. Dennison, 
G. L. Thompson, 



EVENING RECEPTION. 



Geo. H. Coombs. 



Barrett Potter, 
G. D. Parks, 
0. T. Newcomb, 
D. D. Gilman, 



Alonzo Day, 
Lyman E. Smith, 
A. V. Metcalf, 
Chas. A. Rogers. 



ANTIQUITIES. 



Milton Grows. 



Lorenzo Larrabee, 
B. L. Pennell, 
Thos. E. Jones, 
Fred V. Gummer, 



90 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS 



DECORATIONS. 

F. M. Stetson, S. B. Dunning, 

Byron Stevens, J. Fred Will, 

A. 0. Reed, I. H. Simpson, 
Benj. L. Furbish. 

RECEPTION OF INVITED GUESTS, 

Leslie A. Lee, Isaac Plummer, 

N. T. Palmer, P. C. Merryman, 

W. M. Pennell. 

PRINTING AND PUBLICATION. 

Geo. T. Little, Henry Johnson, 

Edw. C. Guild, Chas. Grant, 

J. W. Fisher. 

SALUTES AND BELL RINGING. 

0. T. Despeaux, Henry Stetson, 

Harvey M. Doughty. 

FIRE-WORKS. 

W. M. Pennell, G. L. Bates, 

John H. Dunning. 

FANTASTICS. 

Chas. E. Townsend, E. M. Snow, 

H. A. Stetson, H. J. Given, 
Ellery C. Day. 



BASE-BALL. 

W. M. Pennell, J. W. Curtis, 

I. P. Booker. 



AUDITORS. 

H. A. Randall, Gardner Cram, 

Thomas H. Riley. 



APPENDIX 



91 



AUDITORS' REPORT. 



The Auditors of the accounts of the celebration of the one 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of 
Brunswick, having examined the receipts and expenditures of the 
Treasurer, find them properly vouched and herewith make the 
following 

FINANCIAL STATEMENT: 



RECEIPTS. 





. $1,000 


00 




. . 100 


00 


Received bv Treasurer from individuals, 


. . 55 


00 




. . $100 


00 




. . 67 


84 




. . 41 


29 


EXPENDITURES. 








. . $407 


28 


Tablets, 


. . 89 


86 






97 




. . 28 


25 




. 100 


00 




. . 48 


38 




. . 108 


29 




. . 117 


84 




. . 100 


00 






00 






00 


Miscellaneous, 




75 


Unexpended balance appropriated in aid of a published 










51 



$1,155 00 

$209 13 
$1,364 13 



$1,364 13 

H. A. Randall, 
T. H. Riley, 

Auditors. 



ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS. 



92 



EXHIBITION OF ANTIQUITIES. 

During the day of the celebration and also on the following day, 
there was an exhibition of antiquities in the Court Room which attracted 
large crowds. The exhibition was under the direction of the Committee 
on Antiquities, of which Mr. Alonzo Day was Chairman, and to many 
persons it was one of the most interesting features of the anniversary. 
It comprised not only the entire collection belonging to the Pejepscot 
Historical Society, but also many articles which were loaned by individ- 
uals for the occasion. There were between seven and eight hundred 
articles on exhibition, of which about six hundred belong to the Pejep- 
scot Historical Society. Antiquarians from other places pronounced the 
collection the largest and finest in the state. The following articles were 
among those which attracted the most attention : 

An ancient loom was operated at intervals during the day by Mrs. 
Mercy Holbrook, of New Meadows, who wove a number of yards of 
linen cloth, such as she was taught to weave in her youth. There 
were several spinning wheels, flax wheels, quill wheels, clock and click 
reels, hatchels, flax crushers, tape looms ; all sorts of cooking apparatus, 
such as tin kitchens, bakers, toasting irons, frying pans, and pewter and 
china dishes, some being over 200 years old; agricultural implements, 
including a wooden plow 115 years old, wooden pitchfork 150 years old, 
an iron pitchfork fully as old, ancient axes, spades, etc.; weapons of 
defense, including a large variety of flint lock muskets, swords, Indian 
arrows. One of the muskets shown is said to have been used in Fort 
George. An Indian birch-bark canoe over 100 years old attracted a 
good deal of attention. There was a hat box in which Captain William 
Woodside, who came to Brunswick in 1719, kept his triangular hat. 
His spectacles were on exhibition, as were also the wedding corset of his 
second wife, dating back to 1742. There were molds for making pewter 
spoons and hand-made pins with twisted wire heads. Other antiquities 
were the first ballot box used by the Brunswick Masonic Fraternity, 
perforated tin lanterus, cow-bell, hand wrought, over 100 years old, a 
pair of tongs which have been in the Dunning family since 1756, and 
were said to have been 100 years old then ; several saddle bags, one of 
them made of seal skin ; ladies' bonnets of the last century. 

Mrs. Thomas Estabrook contributed the largest number of articles; 
others who contributed largely were William and Obed Merrill, Miss 
Sarah A. Thompson, Mrs. A. B. Pendleton, Abram York, Miss Caroline 
Patten, T. S. McLellan, Miss Mary Thompson, John Furbish, Hiram K. 
Alexander, Elder Hiram Campbell, Lorenzo Larrabee, and Mrs. William 
Alexander, while those who gave or loaned each a few articles were too 
numerous to mention here. 



